


I Still Have Plans To Go To Mexico - Prequels

by JiM, MJ (mjr91)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-15
Updated: 2000-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 07:05:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11330892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JiM/pseuds/JiM, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: See story parts for details.





	I Still Have Plans To Go To Mexico - Prequels

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

"Plans" by JiM - Prequel #1 to "I Still Have Plans to go to Mexico" by MJ and JiM

Title: "Plans" - A prequel to "I Still Have Plans to go to Mexico"  
Author: JiM  
Date: 1/99  
Pairing: M/Sk, first-time  
Rating: R  
Note: Many thanks to Pares for her stellar ideas, the ones that always strike after 11 pm. Also to MJ, who always inspires, cajoles, encourages and boots in the ass, at prudently judged intervals, and Karen, who can spot a useless modifier at 50 paces.  
"I Still Have Plans to go to Mexico" can be found at the /X Archive and on MJ's page at: http://members.aol.com/MJR91/ficintro.html (eventually)  
Archive: Yes to /X, all others, please ask.  
Feedback: 

* * *

****

"Plans"  
by JiM

Mulder wandered through the connecting door, wearing only his sweat pants, vigorously toweling at his hair. "Scully?" he asked, voice muffled. "Have you got anything I can wear? Someone's aftershave leaked all over my suitcase and everything's soaked in some 'Obsession' knock off."

"Do you and Scully often share clothes, Agent Mulder?", a voice growled from the region of the desk.

Mulder's arms flailed wildly as he ripped the towel off his head and stared in horror at his boss, who was sitting calmly at the desk, papers spread before him, tie loose and collar hanging open. "Uh, sir, um..." Mulder said intelligently.

"I understand that the tailored masculine look is in for women these days, but I confess, I'm not able to see you in the scoop-necked things she usually wears," Walter Skinner continued thoughtfully. If Mulder had been able to look directly at his boss, he would have seen the demonic twinkle in Skinner's eye. It wasn't often that he could reduce Mulder to stammering or silence with anything less than a full-volumed bellow or an involuntary commitment. He let the sweet moment stretch as long as he could, then took pity on Mulder and let one side of his mouth quirk.

"Scully offered to trade rooms with me. She doesn't need a king-sized bed and my room didn't have one; that's about all I can sleep on." Skinner got up abruptly, trying not to notice how good Mulder looked, standing there, hair tousled, skin sparkling with water droplets in the early evening sunlight that streamed through the windows. He rummaged in his suitcase for a moment, then came up with a black t-shirt that he tossed to Mulder.

"Here. Wear that." Mulder smiled his thanks, then slipped it over his head and Skinner found his mouth going dry. The shirt was loose on Mulder, but the dark color merely made him look spare and elegant, like an heirloom blade waiting for the touch of his hand. The intimacy of seeing Mulder wearing his clothes was ... jesus.

"Need anything else, Mulder?" Skinner grated.

The younger man shook his head, completely over his embarrassment, good humor back in evidence. "Nope. The concierge swore she'd have everything dry cleaned and back to me by 7 am. She even lent me a toothbrush. But I suspect I will not be welcome in the restaurant downstairs without a tie."

"Or underwear," Skinner suggested, then immediately wished for one well-aimed lightning bolt to obliterate him. 

Nothing happened except for Mulder's startled look, followed by a quirky grin. "Well, it was either the natural look or wandering around smelling like a Turkish cathouse, sir."

"I see," Skinner said lamely.

"Scully and I are ordering from room service, sir. Care to join us?"

"Uh, no, Mulder. I've got plans," Skinner lied smoothly. "Thanks," he added, wondering if he had really seen a flash of disappointment in those light-colored eyes. 

Mulder merely nodded then retreated politely through the connecting door he'd cannoned through earlier. The sound of the lock tumbling into place sounded very loud in the golden silence left in Mulder's wake.

* * * 

An hour later, downstairs in the hotel's excellent restaurant, Walter Skinner realized that he simply wasn't very good at eating alone. Which was a shame, because he'd been doing it quite a lot in the past two years. Some people are able to dine alone in public and appear completely comfortable and unselfconscious, at peace with whatever thoughts might be passing through their own heads. Not he. And he simply couldn't bring himself to the point of opening a book at the table, as he'd seen some other solitary diners do, frankly admitting that there was nothing outside themselves worth paying attention to. His early training held good, his paperback remained upstairs and he was left to stare steadily at the candle on his table and to wonder why he hadn't accepted Mulder's friendly invitation. 

The answer was simple, really; he'd wanted it too much. He wasn't certain when it had begun, this fascination, this tight focus on Mulder. It was dangerous; it was stupid; it was hopeless; he was helpless to stop it. All he could do was try to keep from falling prey to it entirely. Since Mulder and Scully had been reassigned to the X-files, it had been a constant battle to maintain the proper lines between him and his subordinates. They had shared so much, they knew such intimate, dark secrets about one another... He despaired of ever having a normal life again; no, that wasn't true, he realized. He was mourning the death of his desire to have that normal life. And part of that normal life involved not being attracted to his younger straight male subordinate, he reminded himself and sighed, signing the receipt for dinner.

Back upstairs, he changed, shucking his professional skin with a sense of relief that was new. Tired; he was getting tired with the constant struggle, fighting the fight that no one else seemed to know was going on. He knew he'd never advance any higher than his current position; between the murder charges, the prostitute and his open support of Mulder's quixotic crusade, he had hit his ceiling. Why stay? he asked himself as he pulled on shorts and the other t-shirt he'd brought. This one was black, too. It occurred to him that he ought to think about expanding his wardrobe choices. 

Why *did* he stay? Because the fight wasn't over yet. The battle hadn't been lost or won and Walter Skinner was constitutionally unable to leave the field until it was. He knew it was this personality quirk that had resulted in Skinners being buried on battlefields across the world. And Mulder? Mulder wouldn't leave the field until all the ashes had settled and he could begin piecing together the wreckage for more answers.

Skinner found himself smiling a little grimly at the image of himself amidst the ruins, handing Mulder a dust pan and broom and telling him to make sure he filled out the paperwork correctly. Paperwork. He sighed again and sat down at the desk to fill out and review his minimum daily requirement of bureaucratic fiber. Next door, he could hear the faint sounds of conversation and the television. Mulder and Scully were there, going over the day's work, watching TV, just being together. Strangely, he didn't feel excluded or lonely; their voices soothed him and he bent to his work with something like good cheer.

Some time later, during which the stack on his left hand had efficiently moved to his right, there was a snick!, then a knock on the connecting door between his room and Mulder's. For one moment, he actually thought about not answering it and pretending that he wasn't there. Good sense prevailed, however, and he got up and opened the door.

Mulder stood there, looking unnaturally grave, despite the sweatpants and t-shirt. His t-shirt. Oh, jesus, his brain was melting again, oozing down to pool in his....

"Mulder, what can I do for you?"

"A moment of your time, sir. A case has just come to my attention and I'd like you to review a 302 so that I can investigate further." Mulder waved a file folder at him. 

Work. Of course. What were you expecting, Walter? Why else would this man come to your door at this time of night except to ask for permission to go haring off to some other previously undiscovered mad tea party, for which he will expect the FBI to reimburse him when his car melts, his laptop becomes possessed or he contracts yet another heretofore unknown virus of probable alien origin. Skinner sighed at the ironically dull routine of it all and waved Mulder into his room.

"Give me the gist of it," he nearly growled, not willing to stare at one more piece of official-looking paper.

Mulder draped himself on top of the low bureau that held the one lamp and the TV and said, "It seems that members of the local artisan population have been experiencing a peculiar nocturnal phenomenon, sir." Mulder paused for breath and Skinner wondered idly what lunacy he was about to be asked to countenance this time. Werewolves? A rain of stones? Perhaps some nice old-fashioned vampirism? Mulder was speaking again.

"It seems that they go to bed with work orders for luxury goods to be filled the following day. When they come into their shops the next morning, they're finding the work already done for them."

Skinner stared at Mulder, hoping there was a point to this. He tried very hard not to be distracted by watching the fingers of Mulder's right hand idly stroking his own abdomen. He pushed himself to say something intelligent. "You're suggesting that someone is breaking in and doing the work for them?"

Mulder nodded seriously and continued speaking, although Skinner noticed that the younger man wouldn't actually look up and meet his eye. "We can only speculate as to the reason why, sir," he said gravely.

"Mulder? Why is the FBI interested in this? What crime is being committed here?"

"Aside from very probably breaking and entering? Hard to say, sir." There was a suspicious gleam in Mulder's eye that made Skinner ask suddenly, "Mulder. Those artisans - what do they do?"

"They're shoemakers, sir."

An awful suspicion was stealing over Walter Skinner.

"And the luxury goods they're finding made for them in the morning are...?"

"Shoes, sir." Mulder said, his eyes limpid with sincerity. "Incredibly finely detailed work, I'm told."

Impossibly, Skinner felt his lips beginning to twitch.

"And you suspect...?"

"Elves, sir," Mulder said earnestly.

There was a moment of terrible silence, like the last breath of wind on a mountain before the avalanche and then the stress of the day caught him and Walter Skinner was roaring with laughter. He staggered to the end of his bed and collapsed on it, still howling. Every time he calmed down slightly, he looked at Mulder and the delighted mischief in the other man's eyes set him off again.

God, it felt good to let go like this. The sound of Mulder's laughter was the sound of water in a dry land and he soaked it into himself, letting his own laughter well up to meet it. Eventually, it died down to undignified snorts and chuckles and he was able to gasp out, "I needed a good laugh. You're a lunatic, you know that?" in a voice warm with the affection he was never able to show for his agents in the office.

"Yes, sir, I've been told," the other man was grinning at him. "Of course, I have official paperwork that says I'm not actually crazy, which is the benefit of spending a weekend in five-point restraints."

Abruptly sobered by the reminder of that whole painful episode, Skinner sat up and polished his glasses on the tail of his t-shirt. He didn't notice Mulder's expression softening as he looked at his boss. "So, does that mean you'll sign the 302?" he asked briskly. 

Skinner recovered himself and stared at his agent. "Mulder -- let's try something new and different -- tell me, in very small English words, what you're doing here, spinning me this line of bullshit at ...," he checked his watch, "11 pm?"

"I'm trying to seduce you, sir," Mulder said quietly. "But you're not being too helpful," he added plaintively.

Skinner looked at his watch again, half-expecting it to be dribbling off his wrist in some Dali-esque signal that his life had glided into the surreal while he had been helplessly giggling on the bed. Nope. Still 11:02 on a hot night in St Louis and Fox Mulder was still standing there, leaning against his TV, only now he was looking at him like a child outside a candy shop. Remembering some of Mulder's other case reports, Skinner said, "Mulder, if I stabbed you right now, what color would you bleed?"

"That's not quite the response I was hoping for, sir."

"I can't even begin to imagine what kind of response you were hoping for when you start a seduction with a request to investigate elves." Skinner got up and crossed the room to the connecting door, which brought him far too close to Mulder's dangerous heat, but it couldn't be helped. 

He held the door between the rooms open and launched into the same speech he had used over the years with various members of the secretarial pool and the occasional fellow agent. "I'm very flattered, but it's impossible...,". Mulder didn't move.

"It's not impossible, sir, just highly improbable." There was that grin again, the one that annoyed him so much because it made him want to do anything Mulder wanted, just to see that light in those sad eyes.

"It's against regs; it makes us blackmail targets - we might as well invite your Cigarette-Smoking friend to watch; it's insane; and what makes you think I'm interested in you?"

Mulder's grin grew a touch deeper, as if he had heard something that pleased him in Skinner's growling plaint. "Because if you weren't, that would have been the first and only reason you mentioned."

Skinner slumped against the edge of the door. "Shit. Mulder, this isn't fair. I can't say yes. You know that."

Mulder was suddenly standing right in front of him. "Yes, you can." Then he was reaching out and pulling Skinner's head the last few inches forward until their lips met. Unnoticed, Skinner's hand began tightening on the door as Mulder's mouth moved across his, tongue darting out shyly to flicker at his boss' closed lips until they opened and let him slip inside. There was an unpracticed sweetness to Mulder's kiss that demanded that Walter Skinner bring his hands up to cradle Mulder's head and slowly deepen the draught, rather than give in to the sudden raging demand for *more* from his long-restrained body.

He broke the kiss, retreating regretfully from the fullness of the sensation and Mulder's lips. His mind still gibbered about the insanity of the whole situation, but it was a faint voice crying in the wilderness of having everything he'd ever wanted locked in his arms, panting and flushed and bright-eyed. Then Mulder brought one hand up to cup the side of his head and misjudged the distance, catching Skinner's glasses and driving them painfully into the bridge of his nose. He let go of Mulder, eyes watering madly, the pain sheeting across his consciousness. He felt his nose gingerly, hoping he wouldn't have to explain a broken nose to anyone in the St. Louis office in the morning.

"Shit, I'm sorry!" Mulder was pulling his head up and inspecting the damage. Skinner batted his hands away and carefully took off his glasses, folded them and put them on top of the TV. Mulder watched him warily, with a kind of bruised defensiveness that tugged at Skinner's heart even as points south demanded that he rip Mulder's clothes off and drag the man to bed *now*.

"Shut up," he suggested and kissed the younger man again. It was even better the second time and Skinner's sensible objections became mute in the face of Mulder's hard, hot body pressed against him, vibrating with noiseless moans. This time when he drew back, Mulder looked positively drunk and that luminous smile was back on his face. 

But something prompted Skinner to ask, "Have you ever done this before?"

"Kissed someone? Or seduced my boss?"

"Smartass," Skinner growled, smiling into the impish face that still had that odd defensiveness hovering in those hazel eyes. "Ever made love to a man?" Mulder shook his head slowly, looking embarrassed. 

Walter Skinner blinked. Then he thought for a very long moment. Good sense voted that he pat Mulder on the head and send him back to his own room. Good sense was immediately throttled when Mulder stirred restively against him, rubbing gently against his aching cock. Walter sorted quickly through most of the lines he had heard used with virgins and discarded them all as patronizing, stupid or simply inapplicable. Mulder certainly wasn't too young to know what he was doing, he wasn't afraid of anything except rejection and he was apparently very sure of what he wanted. In the end, Skinner just smiled into the anxious eyes and said, "You're gonna love this."

And Mulder did. He was vocal in his appreciation; his range was impressive. He sighed, moaned, hummed, purred and shouted his pleasure. Skinner couldn't help feeling a bit smug as the usually-reserved Mulder writhed across his bed, begging for more of his touch. He accepted everything his lover did with a kind of open wonder that told Skinner far more about the man's romantic history than he would have wanted known.

It was only when he gently urged Mulder over onto his stomach that he saw the younger man tense, fingers locking in the sheets in nervousness rather than erotic tension. "Mulder. Relax. We're not going to do that tonight. We're not going to do anything you don't want to do." He saw his words rippling down Mulder's back, letting his formerly boneless arousal flood back as the younger man whispered, "I trust you."

The pleasure of hearing those words was as sharp as pain, and Skinner took a deep breath before kissing the star-shaped scar on one shoulder. "I know. But we don't have what we need and there's a lot of fun to be had yet. Some other time," he promised, beginning to kiss his way down the long muscular back. A long sigh of pleasure was his answer.

Mulder tasted sharp and sweet and green, freshly showered; like he hadn't spent the day pounding pavement and desktops as he and Scully tried to unravel the mess the St. Louis office had made of a comparatively simple X-file. Mulder's scent grew richer as Skinner brushed his unshaven chin over the curve of that firm ass, nuzzling happily. Mulder's gasp was as much a sensual pleasure as the taste and feel of that summer-silk skin beneath Walter's tongue. He ran his hands caressingly up Mulder's legs, gently urging him to spread them, then he settled in between them and applied himself to the task of showing Mulder all the fun to be had, as promised. That, or driving him insane with lust; he wasn't particular, as long as it convinced Mulder to come back to his bed and never leave it.

Mulder's response to reaming was encouraging. He shuddered and mumbled, tossed his head and finally begged when Skinner's tongue began stroking lovingly around his balls. "Please....you're trying to kill me, aren't you? They're gonna find me dead, in your bed. Please...." Skinner finally took pity on him and sat up, after another friendly nuzzle at Mulder's fine ass. One hand on Mulder's hip was all the invitation needed and the young man turned over with a groan. Mulder's cock was slender and long and curved yearningly up towards his quivering abdomen. Skinner stopped to admire it, mouth already watering at the thought of tasting it again. Mulder's rasping whisper, "Skinner...", was all he needed to hear and he was unleashed, licking, sucking, nipping, and stroking. It seemed like no more than a moment later that Mulder was shouting and arching off the bed, flooding his mouth with saltwater-cinnamon flavored cream.

Mulder lay there, panting and motionless as Skinner gave his cock a last proprietary caress before sliding up the bed to kiss him deeply. Those hazel eyes were shining when he pulled back to look at his lover. "Well?" Skinner asked with a grin, not at all afraid of the answer.

"Can I try that?"

"Oh yeah," he breathed, as Mulder pushed him flat and began his own explorations.

They were both brisk and business-like when they met Scully for breakfast, twenty minutes late. Mulder chattered unceasingly, mind flickering from topic to topic, which Scully appeared to follow with practiced ease. Skinner kept trying to school the idiotic grin from his face with a noticeable lack of success, if the tiny smirk on Scully's perfectly molded lips was any indication. He trusted her not to report them or do anything to hurt Mulder; he hoped that she would grow to trust him in the same way.

Shit. The situation called for a plan; he started thinking as he drank his second cup of coffee. It was insane, it was dangerous, and he hadn't felt this happy in a long time. It was a feeling he was willing to trade just about everything else in his life to keep. 

Finis

Feedback cheerfully accepted: 

 

* * *

 

A prequel to "I Still Have Plans to Go to Mexico" by MJ and JiM "Plans" (JiM's prequel) from Mulder's POV...

Reply to 

"Mexico" can be found at ArchiveX or my website (http://members.aol.com/mjr91/ficintro.html)  
Spoilers: Not really; just some very offhand references to "Tooms," "Fire," "Sleepless," "Pusher" / "Kitsunegari", "Avatar," and a couple of others.  
Thanks to JiM and Kass.

* * *

"Saint Louis Blues"  
by MJ

Have you ever really, really wanted something? And realized that you couldn't have it? Worse yet, have no idea how you would go about getting it if you could have it? For some kids, it's a pony. For some adults, it's a sailboat, or chucking work and taking a hiking trip around the world. For me, the impossible desire of a good two or three years was named Walter Skinner. Walter S. Skinner, FBI Assistant Director, muscular idol and Hoover Building collective lust object. Also... previously married, though he'd never worn a ring and he'd never mentioned his wife. Not until... well, that's another story. Worse, my immediate supervisor. Worse yet, if he was married, more likely than not he was straight, which I certainly wasn't. Well, I'm still not, of course... but we're talking about then, not now.

Now, it's not that I didn't like women. Lord knows I let Phoebe and Diana walk all over me. But I'd always been interested in guys, as much if not more. Not that I'd ever done anything about it. Hell, I know what you're thinking - he went to Oxford, for crying out loud, the home of institutional queerness, and didn't get laid? Well, in a word... no. The word "chickenshit" comes to mind, looking back at it. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't say I never did anything. I was in a couple of fairly drunken clinches with a classmate or two, and I got as far as going to bed with one guy and jerking each other off. But that's as far as it went. Hey, I said "chickenshit" and I meant it.

Getting assigned to working with Alex Krycek - now, there I almost managed to cure myself of an annoying case of near virginity. From the moment that rat bastard made big puppy eyes at me with those gorgeous green eyes it was all I could do not to rip off my clothes. That's why I kept pushing him off of me - I wanted the bastard so badly I scared myself. He kept waiting for me to make a play for him and I was scared to death to do it, I was scared to death of making a fool of myself. What the hell did I know about making a pass at another guy? Not a damn thing. So I kept waiting for him to actually come on to me, and he never did; he just kept flirting. Then Duane Barry abducted Scully, and Krycek disappeared... and I was really, really glad that I'd never gotten involved with him. I think I'd have killed myself if I thought I'd been having an affair with someone responsible for what had happened to Scully.

As the whole Krycek thing slowly buried itself in the back of my memory, I found myself noticing Walter Skinner. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed him in the first place; I guess I'd just been too intimidated at being supervised by one of the most infamous hardnoses in the Bureau. I had no idea then that he was one of the people responsible for rescuing me from Bill Patterson's supervision in the first place, that he'd been looking to move me under his direct supervision for two years before it actually happened. It wasn't so much anything to do with Krycek that made me notice Walter Skinner, I think, as the fact that I was finally starting not to be scared of him, finally realizing that he just might be a human being.- not to mention the most studworthy thing on two legs. Then came that business with Sharon, his soon- to-be ex-wife. That was when I realized that the man made me seriously weak in the knees. It was also when I started wondering if the interest he'd begun taking in me might be something more than purely professional, though he never did anything overt that would have proved it.

Then came Saint Louis. It was a trip I hadn't really been looking forward to going on. The heat in Saint Louis had been broadcast over the whole country as hot and wet enough to steam shrimp. The regional office was undergoing restructuring, and there was only a slight fiasco in the way the agents assigned to the task had been handling a case that obviously involved demon- possessed toys in the sloppiest way possible. Hell, you'd think the slobs had never heard of a possessed ventriloquist's dummy before. Two agents were in the hospital from failure to watch "Twilight Zone" reruns and old Karen Black TV movies. The safari wardrobe needed to survive the heat wasn't being furnished by the Bureau, meaning showing up in Saint Louis in... I cringe to think of it... wool serge. I guess there's no need to go over my infamous sartorial habits. I'd already ruined a couple of thousand-dollar suits in bad conditions, but damn it, I wasn't going to be able to claim expenses for clothing ruined by cruddy weather. That'd go about as far with Accounting as the suit I'd tried claiming when Eugene Tooms slimed it.

So anyway, Scully and I went out to Saint Louis to show the regionals how it's done - I can't believe there were no "Night Stalker" watchers in that office - and Skinner came along to supervise the mess they were making of the reorganization. I was glad he'd come along, for once. If I said, "You're going after a demonically possessed ventriloquist's dummy, and do you carry holy water around with you?" without major backup, I'd be stomped into the pavement. If Skinner said, "All agents on this case will carry crucifixes and load silver bullets," they'd damn well carry crucifixes and silver bullets and like it. We flew in the day before meeting with the regionals, planning to review first and gang up on them the next day. Plans, however, got slightly rearranged, first by the baggage compartment on the plane and then by the rest of the universe.

If I ever find the bastard whose cologne leaked on my suitcase, so help me, there'll be a bullet through him. Scully nearly choked on the fumes from that drugstore Calvin Klein knockoff in our cab, and I was seriously afraid of permanent clothing discoloration, not to mention smelling like a Calcutta bordello for the duration. Skinner got picked up by the SAC and dropped off at the hotel. He didn't get poisoned, the lucky bastard. Anyway, we got to the hotel, and I spent the better part of an hour finding what was salvagable of what I'd packed - a pair of sweats, my shoes and running shoes, and a pair of running shorts -and bribing the concierge into rushing the rest of my stuff to the cleaners for an immediate miracle. I showered to get the cruddiness of the mixture of airplane air circulation, cheap cologne, and the Saint Louis humidity off of me, pulled on the sweats, and tried to figure out what I'd do for a shirt for the evening. I obviously wasn't dining downstairs in the hotel's four-star dining room in sweats, but Scully and I do room service a lot anyway - nonetheless, I wanted to cover up. Hotel air conditioning can get pretty fierce.

Scully always had this habit of sleeping in big, sloppy men's T-shirts, nearly big enough for her to use as a sleeping bag. I figured she'd have at least two of them in her suitcase. So I knocked on the door between our rooms and asked the obvious - "Scully? Have you got anything I can wear?"

"Do you and Scully often share clothes, Agent Mulder?"

Damn. Busted. During my clothing fiasco, Skinner had made off with Scully's room. No funky T-shirt with National Wildlife Federation logos tonight. Meanwhile, I was standing, pretty much damp and half-naked, right in front of Walter Skinner, the object of most of my overage wet dreams. He tossed me one of his own shirts, a black T-shirt that was only about two sizes too large, which I pulled on gratefully. The air conditioning was blasting cold enough on my damp skin to play hell with my nipples... and I wasn't sure if Skinner was checking me out or if it was my imagination working overtime. I invited him to join Scully and me for our usual room service picnic in my room. He turned me down, other plans... having the SAC filleted and grilled over charcoal with fresh lime juice and cilantro was my guess. I didn't know whether to be sad, or to be relieved. I was already in his clothing; did I really want him sitting beside me on a bed, munching his way through... ribs? Corn on the cob? Corn dogs? Celery stalks? Blue raspberry ice pops? It seemed like a pretty bad idea, especially if I got carried away in front of Scully... maybe it was a good thing he was dining elsewhere. Imagining Walter Skinner's lips surrounding that ice pop made me glad my sweats were pretty loose.

I heard him come back after dinner. Scully and I were sitting on the bed I wasn't planning to sleep in, packing away way too much food, looking at the file, talking bullshit, and watching TV. I figured the TV, against the wall between my room and Skinner's, would drown out conversation. "Scully, I have a problem."

"What now, Mulder?"

"What would you think if I said I was trying to think of how to proposition someone but I wasn't sure how to go about it?"

She blanched. "Uh, Mulder, look, I, well..."

"Not you, Scully." Her relief was palpable. I didn't like that at all - I mean, I didn't want my partner, but it's still a blow to your vanity if someone goes "eeew" at you, and she pretty much had. Still, it made the rest of the discussion just a bit easier. "it's a guy."

Scully just stared at me. "Jesus, Mulder, you do like to spring things on me, don't you?" She sipped at a cup of herbal tea, musing. "You know, that's not exactly my area of expertise. Besides - who down here did you figure is available? I hadn't heard any scuttlebutt about anyone."

"It's not my area of expertise either, Scully. I just figure you know more about guys than I do. And I'm playing a hunch here, Scully. Trust me. Either I'm crazy or he's checked me out."

"Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive, Mulder."

"I love you too, Scully. Come on, give me a break. I need advice here."

Anyway, I finally got her to give me some useful ideas. I mean, they weren't perfect. I had to fix them some. But they were enough to give me a plan. Once I had that, the rest was going to be relatively easy. Or so I figured. Providing, of course, that I didn't just lose my nerve. And that I didn't get killed. The latter was unlikely, but still within the realm of possibility. Even if he was as interested as I thought he was, he was still my supervisor - and the man who invented the phrase "by the book." Besides, even if he didn't kill me, he could still play by the damned rules and say "no". And then I might have to kill myself out of sheer humiliation. If he turned me down, I'd still have to go spend the rest of the trip in the next room, and go back to the office with him. So that left me with one choice only - land him on the first try.

Where I was getting the bravery - or foolhardiness - from, I don't quite know. It might have been from that absolute certainty that Skinner had been looking at me like I was dessert for a minute. It might have been from standing around for over two years drooling on my shoes at Walter Skinner's nearly perfect body. It might have been the knowledge that I was sitting on a bed wearing his clothing with him in the very next room, and that he knew it too. I was going to wind up in bed with Walter Skinner before midnight or die trying. There was one way to crack that regulation G-man exterior; now, if I could just make it work.

Humor. If I could just disarm him, get him to laugh - Walter Skinner laughing just might get me a place in the history books; no one, to my knowledge, had ever caused it to happen. I'd seen him give a sort of mild chuckle at jokes told by other agents that caused everyone else in the room to fall down on their butts laughing. Sometimes, when he was in good mood, he could be seen with the corners, just the corners, of his lips curving up about one degree. The man probably could sit through an entire Marx Brothers movie without expression and then say something like, "Yeah, that was pretty funny" at the end. I, however, was going to do it. Tonight. In the next room. I decided to borrow from a joke Scully had once pulled on me. She'd baited me into falling for an obviously phony case. That was it. I was gonna get him, but good.

I thought. I made notes. I ran a couple of ideas past a hysterically amused Scully. I don't for a moment think I'm the comedian of the century; I suspect she was laughing at me. Who else ever wrote out and rehearsed a pickup? Finally, I threw her out of the room. I knew she'd have loved to see me try it out in real life; she'd said as much. I didn't bother pointing out that she'd probably have paid to watch the followup if it worked as intended. I tried to avoid thinking about the "what comes after" part, actually. I was much better acquainted with the theory than the practice. A couple of fumbling drunken groping and petting sessions over ten years before, a few bi movies I'd seen on video because I didn't have the guts to rent or buy any of the all-male ones, and a hell of a lot of masturbation fantasies involving either Alex or Skinner didn't exactly make me the voice of experience here. I had experience with women, but that wasn't quite the same thing. I knew this much - don't use your teeth when you go down. Phoebe'd gone to bed with me one night after we'd had a fight earlier, and she took her side of it out on me during a blow job. Beyond that, things were a little more doubtful.

I knocked on the connecting door, which I discovered he'd locked, and waited. After what felt like an eternity but was probably thirty seconds at most, the door opened. I nearly hit the floor. Skinner was in a T-shirt exactly like the one I'd borrowed, but instead of being somewhat loose, as the one I wore was on me, this one was nearly stretched to the limit over the pecs I'd nearly slobbered on in the Bureau gym dozens of times. And he was wearing gym shorts. The really little ones that you can get away with swimming in if you're wearing a jock. The only thing worse would have been spandex biking shorts; I'd have thrown my plot out of the window and just lunged if he'd been wearing those. I tried remembering to breathe.

"Mulder, what can I do for you?"

"A moment of your time, sir. A case has just come to my attention and I'd like you to review a 302 so that I can investigate further." I waved a folder in his face, hoping to look convincing. He looked slightly distressed. Good. He thought I was going to ruin his evening with a pile of paperwork at eleven at night.

"Give me the gist of it," he nearly growled, looking like I'd just offered to take him to see a Reticulan landing site.

I propped myself against some fancy hotel furniture, the kind you wish you had in your own home but you can never find it in regular furniture stores, and prepared to brief him just the same way I'd run it past a convulsing Scully. "It seems that members of the local artisan population have been experiencing a peculiar nocturnal phenomenon, sir. It seems that they go to bed with work orders for luxury goods to be filled the following day. When they come into their shops the next morning, they're finding the work already done for them."

"You're suggesting that someone is breaking in and doing the work for them?" Oh, yeah, he was hanging on to every word I was saying. That, or he was staring at something I was doing that involved my fingers and the waistband on the sweats, a couple of inches above what I hoped to God he thought was the promised land. I checked again. He was staring. He was utterly transfixed, in fact. I've never seen anyone in my life try so hard not to look at something.

"Why is the FBI interested in this? What crime is being committed here?" Funny he should ask. Is sodomy still on the books in the state of Missouri? I'm not sure about that, but there was a serious attempt going on in that room. "Mulder. Those artisans - what do they do?"

"They're shoemakers, sir." He was catching on. He was still going to lose it when I hurled the punchline.

"And you suspect...?"

"Elves, sir." My best straight-line delivery, the one I'd used on Tom Colton about Reticulan blue-plate specials.

A moment of total silence. For one second, I thought the forces of the Universe were about to send down lightning and slay me on the spot -I'd obviously failed miserably. Was my will in order? Had I left my porn collection to Frohike like I'd promised? Had I remembered to appoint Byers as caretaker of my tropical fish? I was certain I'd better die now, because I didn't want to deal with the suffering I'd endure eternally for blowing this.

Then - it hit. Sort of like the way a hailstorm hits on a beautiful summer day and you can't think where all that ice is coming from. Uncontrollable laughter coming out of Walter Skinner's mouth, from all they way down in his chest. I wished I'd had a video camera to prove it was possible. Down on the bed, pounding the mattress - hell, he thought it was funnier than I did. I suddenly thought about the Monty Python routine about the fatal joke that killed anyone who read it because they died laughing, and I started giggling myself.

"You're a lunatic, you know that?" He was finally able to talk again.

"Yes, sir, I've been told. Of course, I have official paperwork that says I'm not actually crazy, which is the benefit of spending a weekend in five-point restraints." Well, I thought it was a good line. He didn't. I guess his remembering what had happened there was an accidental bucket of cold water; I'd gotten over the whole thing, but I didn't realize how sensitive he must still have felt about what he'd done back then. Hell, if I'd 've been him I'd have done the same thing. I figured I'd better bring it back around to the part of the routine he'd liked. "So, does that mean you'll sign the 302?"

"Mulder -- let's try something new and different -- tell me, in very small English words, what you're doing here, spinning me this line of bullshit at ...," he checked his watch, "11 pm?"

Shit, hand me the gun. I figured I must have blown it. Some line from a poem I'd been force fed at Oxford, it must have been Shakespeare, about the joys of death popped into my head. No point bullshitting -dead is dead. I decided to 'fess up. "I'm trying to seduce you, sir. But you're not being too helpful."

"I can't even begin to imagine what kind of response you were hoping for when you start a seduction with a request to investigate elves." Skinner got up and crossed the room to the connecting door. I'd hoped for him falling at my feet, I wanted to tell him. I'd nearly gotten it, too; if he'd been standing closer to me, he would have collapsed right there when he started laughing. "I'm very flattered, but it's impossible...".

Ha. That line was canned, wasn't it? I had an edge. I was out of my standup comic mode now; I'd just heard something that reminded me of an old interrogation concept. Stock answers can be thrown by the right responses to them, since the other person isn't thinking. The ball was back in my court, and I'd just grown a foot taller. "It's not impossible, sir, just highly improbable."

"It's against regs; it makes us blackmail targets - we might as well invite your Cigarette-Smoking friend to watch; it's insane; and what makes you think I'm interested in you?"

For five thousand dollars and a new car... that was entirely the wrong -or should I say right - order. He wanted this, all right, and I still had a chance at it. "Because if you weren't, that would have been the first - and only - reason you mentioned." A psych degree does have its uses.

Skinner slumped against the edge of the door. "Shit. Mulder, this isn't fair. I can't say yes. You know that."

"Yes, you can." Hell, you only live once, and I had Walter Skinner pretty much where I wanted him. I wasn't sure of a lot of the practical application of my interest, but I could figure out how to do the next move with no trouble at all. I reached over, pulled his face right up against me, and went for broke. I had my tongue in his mouth, his hands were in my hair, and I was ready to come in my pants. For half a second I thought it was Christmas.

Now remember, I'm the only law enforcement officer in the world who gets shot by his partner when he corners the bad guy. I'm the only human being on this planet who runs out of gas in the middle of the Antarctic. I can blow anything if I try hard enough. Which explains why I reached up to this gorgeous sonofabitch who was standing close enough for me to feel that he's got a titanium hard-on under his shorts, trying to get him close enough for a full-body meld, and managed to hit him just about full-force in the glasses. I've gotten hit in the glasses. The balls aren't the only place you can catch someone hard enough to stun them. Glasses into the face will do it every time. Where the hell was the nearest gun? I was ready to shoot myself without any help from Modell.

I've been told that the "clumsy helpless guy" routine gets some women turned on. It must work on some men too, because rather than throw me out the door at this point, Walter took off his glasses - probably a self-defense tactic - and grabbed me. Come to think of it, that might also have been self-defense. Anyhow, he grabbed me, told me to shut up - I must have said something stupid, which would be predictable for me - and kissed me hard enough to induce serious brain damage from oxygen deprivation. The only part of my body that wasn't turning to Jello was hard enough to perform some of those crazy stunts I've heard about Hindu fakirs doing with them. I'd just about decided that it was Christmas and my birthday put together when Walter decided to ask me just what I didn't want to answer.

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Kissed someone? Or seduced my boss?"

"Ever made love to a man?" I'm almost as good at "sheepish" as I am at "clumsy helpless guy." I think I actually blushed. I decided that if he told me to be a good boy and go home, I'd kill him first and then shoot myself just to avoid explaining at the hearing. Fortunately for my dislike of committing homicide on anyone but Alex Krycek or Cancerman, Walter must have liked "sheepish" nearly as much as he liked "clumsy," because he just looked at me, grinned, and announced, "You're gonna love this."

One thing I'll tell you - the man has never lied to me about anything that mattered in the long run. I don't even remember how we got naked or wound up in bed. I don't even think I knew my own name at the time. I know I was having a religious experience, because I think I was speaking in tongues. I'm surprised hotel security didn't show up to find out what all the noise was about. If this was what sex was supposed to feel like, I wanted my money back on the past twenty years, because all the rest of my experience had obviously just wasted my time. I'd heard the phrase "incoherent with lust," I'd read it in the occasional porn novel, but if you'd asked me what it meant, I wouldn't have been able to tell you before that evening. Walter was doing things to me that I'd never even known to imagine - and admitting that when you're over 35 and have a lot of porn under your belt is damn embarrassing.

Nipples. I had no idea about nipples, you know that? Not men's, that is. Women's, yeah. Women's are pretty nice; I'd already figured that much out. But I didn't know about mine; I guess Phoebe and Diana didn't know, either. I almost hit the ceiling when Walter leaned down and started working on them. I'd never felt anything like it, and he didn't show any sign of quitting, either. It was... incredible, and I was hard as a rock, and I wanted to come, but I couldn't. I kept trying to grind myself into him, to get some kind of friction going to get me off, but all Walter'd do was back off, grin, and go, "not yet." I'd have begged for mercy if I could have made any intelligible sounds, but I just kept moaning. Finally, he moved down and started nibbling his way down my chest. I didn't know about navels, either - anyone's. Walter must have gotten some kind of really advanced sex ed class, was all I could figure - not that I was doing much figuring at the moment. I just flailed around like a carp on a hot rock and hoped that you really couldn't die from too much of a good thing.

I was waiting to see what happened next; I'd figured Walter was going to move down a few more inches and start working on my cock. Wrong... I was over on my stomach so fast I didn't even know I'd turned over. Hands working over my shoulders, my sides, kneading at my ass. God, Walter's got these incredible hands. Grip strength like nobody's business, which must be from gripping barbells... and then my body suddenly figured out that yeah, I was ass-end up with a guy hung like a mule, because he's just damn big everywhere, he is... and it just must not have been as into the fun as I was, because I tensed up and nearly flipped out, probably scared about the sudden thought of not only my first time, but, well, like I said, it wasn't small. I felt Walter slide the hands back up and start working on my shoulders again. "Mulder. Relax. We're not going to do that tonight. We're not going to do anything you don't want to do."

"I trust you." And I did.

"I know. But we don't have what we need and there's a lot of fun to be had yet. Some other time," he promised, and he was nibbling his way down my spine all of a sudden, and then... I screamed. I must have. I can't not have. Believe me, I'd never been rimmed before, and let me tell you, if I had been, I'd have known. Nerve endings I didn't think my body had were showing me just what I'd been missing all this time, and I suddenly realized, really clearly, that there was a reason so many guys wanted to be on the bottom. Because it was fantastic, I couldn't keep still and I'm really surprised I didn't hit Walt by accident again when I think about it, and it... just... wasn't... enough. Not enough to come, even though I was grinding into the sheets like crazy, and too much at the same time - between the rimming and his working over my balls, I was fucking overloading on sensations.

When Walter finally nudged me back around and went down on me... jesus. I'd had blow jobs before. At least I'd thought that's what they were. Getting head from a guy, or at least from Walter, was a totally different thing. Phoebe had certainly never looked at my cock like it was the most incredible thing in the universe, and I'm still amazed she didn't disinfect it first and get up to gargle immediately afterwards. Diana - well, I can lose an erection just thinking about Diana's talents in that department. A few dates here and there had been more enthusiastic than Phoebe, more skilled than Diana... but nothing like this. When I finally went down on him I realized what it was... you know what you like, and you do it to your partner. Women don't know how it feels; they don't automatically know about that ridge underneath, or the spots right in front of and right behind the family jewels, or... well, the good stuff. You have to be on the receiving end to know how it feels. I came, and I came, and I'm still not quite sure I didn't pass out for a second there. And the only thing I could think was, hey, I want to do this to Walter, I want him to feel like I just did.

I won't pretend I was great at what I was doing. But he wasn't stopping me, and he wasn't complaining, so I mustn't have been too godawful... or else he had the patience of a saint, which is entirely possible. But the sounds were encouraging, and the way he kept wriggling and squirming, so I figured I'd keep going. Walter Skinner, the most poker-up-his-ass man I'd ever known at the office, was a fucking wild man in the sack, and I liked it. I was even enjoying the apparent contradiction, sort of like when Clark Kent rips his shirt off.

He tasted amazing, Sharp, sort of citrusy, under a coating of salt from the way he'd been sweating. Then I made it down to his erection. No doubt about it, I definitely liked guys, because right then I'd never seen anything in my life I wanted more than that cock. I didn't even worry about what I was going to do with it when I got my mouth on it; I just figured I'd make it up as I went along, as long as I got hold of it. Musk, and more salt, over satin skin, over steel. Whatever I was doing with my tongue was working, I figured, because Walter was all over the bed. I knew I'd driven him crazy in the past, but he'd never liked my doing it before. Of course, he was usually yelling bloody murder at me those times, not moaning for me to suck him harder.

I wasn't quite ready for it when he came. Not a big deal, I guess, but it startled me. I didn't gag - actually, I missed a fair amount of it, and I got to amuse myself - him, too, I think - licking it off of him. Mildly salty, slightly bitter, warm... I'd tasted my own, off and on; it was definitely more fun going for his. Yeah, I wanted to do this again; I just was really worried that I might have been terrible and he'd never want me to try. I guess I shouldn't have worried. When I crawled back up, he grabbed my face in both of those huge hands and practiced mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on me that suggested that both of our lives depended on it.

He was sprawled across the bed, apparently taking up most of it, even for a king sized one; I was up against him now, with my head on his shoulder, my arm across his chest, really pretty comfortable and just about ready to fall asleep right there. Then I thought better of it. The morning - now, that could give awkward a whole new meaning. I hoped it wouldn't... I could handle this again the next night - if he didn't come down with second thoughts about boffing me. Shit, what if he just wanted a one-nighter... He must have sensed my sudden discomfort.

"Something wrong?"

"I - I was jut wondering. Maybe I should get back to my room?" That sounded a safe way to express my sense of "mess."

He pulled me tighter against him. "Only if you want to disobey a direct order, agent." Good answer. "You. Are. Not. Going. Anywhere. Understood?" He chuckled, a sort of deep, throaty sound that made me want to do him all over again against the knowledge that he'd hardly be ready to go for it again already.

"Yes, sir." I snuggled in like a heat-seeking missile. Not that it wasn't too damn warm around the place already, but no way was I letting go. Not on your life.

"I don't know about you," he told me, talking into my hair, "but I need some sleep. And you and Scully have your hands full tomorrow. Let's crash." Kisses in my hair, another bear hug. Yeah, I could get used to this. More than that, I wanted to.

Horrible, horrible sounds... then Walter picked up the telephone receiver, rolling over me in the process. "Yeah... thanks." He slammed it down, grumbling. "Damn wake-up call." Then he looked at me. "Morning, Mulder. Welcome to the land of the living."

I looked up at him hovering over me in the bed. One thing about being bald - your hair looks just fine in the morning. Walter looked pretty fine all over to me, to tell the truth. "Time to get up?"

"I don't know about you," he grinned, "but I'm already up." Thanks to whatever invented human biology for the morning erection.

By the time we were done waking up properly and showering together, it was clear we were going to be late for breakfast. Scully would be waiting for me, if not for both of us, probably grousing at her cooling coffee. We came down to the coffee shop twenty minutes late, together. Scully looked irked for a moment, then took a good look, and just made this teeny little tight-lipped smirk into her coffee cup. I knew I'd hear about it from her later, because Walter had this shit-eating grin that he apparently didn't realize he had. Scully and I were talking; he seemed fairly distracted. "So...," she interjected, "sleep well, Mulder?"

"Yeah, Scully. You?"

"Apparently not as well as you did. Pass the sugar?"

"You didn't say please, Scully." I handed it over.

She snickered as she took it from me. "So that's what you're into? I never knew." I turned and looked - Walter was still in another galaxy; I hoped the Reticulans didn't find him and take his liver. At least he wasn't listening to us, thank God. He's cute when he's completely distracted. I'd never noticed that before. I was mildly distracted myself, wondering where the nearest drugstore was - I figured I needed to pick up condoms and lube for that evening.

How the hell were we gonna keep this going back in DC? I didn't know, but damn all if I was letting this drop when we got back. Judging from Walter's expression, that made two of us.

 

* * *

 

"Got My Mojo Working"  
By MJ ()  
Part of the "Mexico" series - a sequel to "St. Louis Blues" (companion piece to "Sinner's Prayer")  
MJ's Fiction and Links:  
http://members.aol.com/mjr91/ficintro.html  
Thanks to Kass and JiM for beta, JiM for co-author of the year, bet dina for opinions and eagle eyes.

* * *

"Got My Mojo Working"  
by MJ

So anyway, at least the air conditioning at the Regional Office in Saint Louis worked. That didn't keep the local agents from sweating. I was reviewing their investigation of that blasted possessed ventriloquist's dummy and raking them over the coals with a lot of help from Scully and a little reinforcement from the big guy. He was spending most of his time there raking the upper echelon over the coals as a little kind assistance in their restructuring, so I didn't see much of him that morning, and what little I did see of him involved his baring fangs at lesser mortals. I'd been on the receiving end of those fangs more than once, and I thanked God I wasn't there now. Where I wanted to be instead was back in his bed, going for a repeat performance of the previous night and that morning.

Scully and I were tearing through files on the case and issuing marching orders to the regional boys when Walter suddenly interrupted us. "You've been working hard enough, you two. I'm buying you lunch. Contrary to popular opinion around here, I'm not having skewered ASAC for an appetizer. Let's get out of here and get some Chinese."

We headed around the corner to a really nice Chinese place with no discernable FBI agents other than ourselves in it, and ordered up a storm. Scully and I were explaining the local agents' fuckups on the dummy case when I suddenly realized that there was another leg under the table making really friendly with one of mine, and it belonged to the hunk sitting directly across from me who was asking Scully about any precedent she recalled from her adventure in Maine with the demonic baby doll and who was looking totally innocent. I didn't know about his condition, but I was getting harder than the chair I was sitting on from the contact. Scully looked down momentarily to root through her handbag, and Mr. Totally Innocent Assistant Director suddenly gave me a look that could have melted both of our pairs of glasses. By the time Scully was done bottom fishing in her purse, Walter was calmly detailing the heads rolling on the upper floor of the Regional Office while one of his hands was playing with my knee. He's got a flair, that's all I can say. I was this close to coming in my pants before the pan-fried noodles and shrimp in garlic sauce arrived.

Scully headed for the ladies' room briefly during lunch. He looked over at me, smoldering, again. "I presume you and Scully have dinner plans." Neutral, not upset. He'd done the life on the road with the partner himself; he knew the routine.

"Nothing specific, but it'd look bad if I ditched her and left her to fend for herself. Care to join us?" This time I counted on an acceptance of the invitation.

"If you don't mind, yes. I'd love to." Husky voice that made me think I might come in my pants again. Dark eyes looking me over as if my clothes were a fortune cookie and I was the paper inside. God, I wanted him. I was going to be distracted all afternoon replaying what we'd been doing the night before and imagining doing most of what we hadn't done. "Would you like to go out after dinner?"

I looked back at him hoping I was mustering up a smoldering look of my own rather than my usual goofy stare. "If you mean just us... only if Scully wants to call it an evening early. She's used to hanging with me on the road. But whenever she crashes... I'm all yours."

More smolder from the hunk staring at me. "I wouldn't settle for anything less." Somehow, I thought he just might mean that.

I took a mid-afternoon coffee break to run out to the drugstore for condoms and lube. The more I thought about what we hadn't done the night before, the more I wanted to go there. A lot of guys seemed to like being on bottom; I could only figure that meant it was a lot more fun than visiting the proctologist -as if Walter's rimming me the night before hadn't proven as much. I was having severely distracting fantasies of a hot, naked Walter Skinner ravishing my body completely, imagining feeling him inside me, that huge chest and those incredibly muscular arms of his surrounding me the way they had on the previous night. Scully had been wondering what the problem with me was; I couldn't think of how to tell her that I was having some kind of Harlequin Romance fantasy involving Walter Skinner sweeping me off my feet and riding my ass into euphoric oblivion.

Then I started looking around the store and my fantasy suddenly got a lot more complex. There were way too many choices to make. All I really knew about was Trojans and K-Y. The matter of brands, lubed and nonlubed, spermicidal and nonspermicidal, ribbed and nonribbed, and, oh Lord, sized condoms for guys who thought they were hung like stallions was really too much to contemplate. Top that with the problem of gel or liquid K-Y, Astroglide, the store brand lube, and about a dozen others on the shelves - which didn't include any of the weird flavored ones you see in the porn shops - and the whole subject of sex was becoming monumentally overwhelming. I really wanted to run back to the office and ask Scully for help, but I knew she'd die laughing at me. I took a deep breath, flipped a coin mentally, and went for the Trojans and the Astroglide. There is such a thing in this world as too much freedom of choice.

The three of us went out for ribs and a couple of pitchers of beer for dinner. Scully proposed a cheerful evening of reviewing more files from the case in her room while she and I watched a "Star Trek" marathon on some independent channel. Since I would normally find an offer like that too good to pass up, I couldn't refuse. I pointed out to her that I'd been tired at breakfast, I was a bit wiped out now; would she mind if we only worked together after dinner for an hour and a half or so? I gave Walter a "look, I have to" look, and he nodded back quickly. "If you two are doing that," he mused aloud, "I think I'll catch CNN and check my e-mail this evening. I have a bottle of Scotch with me if you feel like a nightcap before you crash, Mulder." I figured that all sounded innocuous enough for Scully's benefit. What was I going to do -tell her we couldn't do any work that night because I wanted to keep the boss's bed warm?

Scully and I did make some headway on the notes of interviews the local boys had conducted while we snickered our way through "I, Mudd," one of my favorite classic Trek episodes. If I ever have a firstborn son, I might have to name him Harcourt Fenton Mudd Mulder. He can call himself "HFM Mulder" and sound distinguished. Anyway, we wrapped things up, I pleaded exhaustion, and I crawled back to my room. A few minutes later, shopping bag in hand, I was slipping into Walter's bedroom. He was watching CNN, all right, sitting in bed naked and nursing a Scotch on the rocks. I tossed the bag on a corner of the bed and myself on the bed's occupant. Well into a soul-searing kiss, Walter looked up at me and grinned. "I presume you want something, Agent Mulder?"

"Yeah." Wriggling against him, thrusting myself against his hip. "I want you to fuck me until I scream."

Bigger smile, laughing brown eyes. "Oh, I think I can arrange that... " Another kiss from the sexiest hunk in the FBI. "But I think you're a little overdressed, Agent. You're going to have to take all that off."

"Is that an order, sir?"

"Absolutely, Mulder." I wasn't going to wreck a budding relationship through willful disobedience to my immediate supervisor, was I? I pulled myself up and slowly peeled myself out of my clothing, taking my time, knowing he was watching every move I was making. I'd never stripped for anyone before; the idea of doing it, knowing that Walter was scrutinizing every inch of my body, realizing I was arousing him with the act, and feeling just a little bit kinky at playing with following orders, was proving to be a really powerful turn-on. By the time I was sliding out of my shorts, I was sporting an erection about as emphatic as the one he'd teased me into at lunch, and Walter was looking at it with a degree of possessiveness that was nearly enough to send me over the edge just watching the way he was looking at me.

I sat back down on the bed, and reached for the bag, waving it in front of him. He reached over for it, and I pulled it out of the way. "I hope I got the right ones," I teased, moving the bag back into his reach.

He felt inside and pulled out the contents, looked at them, and looked up at me again. "Mmmm... I think they'll be just fine." He looked at the purchases again. "Went for the extra large box, Mulder?"

A three-pack had seemed pointless, and a twelve-pack... well... "Call me an optimist, sir. I figured adequate preparation was a worthwhile investment."

Walter laughed. And laughed. And fucking started chuckling his damned guts out there in the sack. For some reason, that had gone over nearly as well as my brilliantly planned elf routine the prior night. What had I done? "Mulder," he finally gasped when he came up for air, "I always wondered what it was going to take for you to prepare for something for once in your life. If I'd known this was it, I'd have dragged you off five years ago."

I grinned at him cheerfully as I slid into his bed. "Dragged me off, huh? I always wanted a caveman of my very own."

"Don't ask for what you want," he admonished me according to the old proverb. "You might get it." Hell, I'd already gotten it, hadn't I, and its name was Walter Skinner. Everything else, all that we could do with each other, was merely a matter of time if I managed not to fuck things up with this man. I was determined not to fuck up now, even if it meant obeying job orders back at the office when we got home.

"I'll chance it," I offered to him, sliding an arm behind his back and pulling him closer to me - or, really, me closer to him; he's a pretty large dead weight lying down compared to me. He grabbed me and pulled me into a kiss that threatened to cut off the oxygen to my brain long enough to do some serious damage. His tongue was doing some serious damage of its own - it might have looked as if he were only probing my mouth, but I could feel him probing parts of me that you couldn't reach physically, including a few that I hadn't let anyone near since Phoebe fucked me over years before. I wasn't sure I was ready to have him reach some of those places yet. I backed out of the kiss as gently as I could, not wanting him to realize how much he'd just scared me - or I'd scared myself, whichever. I pulled myself up against his chest and started exploring his body the way I had the night before. If I threw myself into the sex, maybe I could keep away from dealing with the parts of me I didn't want touched yet.

Walter, as I'd hoped, figured it was completely stark, raving lust on my part that had my mouth on every part of his body I could reach. I do have to admit, there was a highly significant lust component there anyway - at least, oh, say, ninety per cent by the time I'd reached his nipples, and I'd pretty much forgotten anything else at all by the time I'd found his erection. Walter Skinner is one significantly gorgeous piece of beef in the first place, but I'd never seen anything in my life I'd wanted more than his cock. I've still never seen anything I've wanted more.

He finally reached down, patting my head. "You'd better stop if you don't want me to come like this. I'm an old man, Mulder; I don't guarantee I'm good for a second one tonight, so I don't want to waste it."

I relinquished my prize grudgingly, but with a grin. "So... what's your suggestion instead?" I slid back up along the length of his body, trailing a hand behind to make sure my new toy wasn't going anywhere without me.

"Mmmm... well, you're the one who brought the lube... you feel like you're ready for it?" If he had been any more solicitous, he'd have wound up going back where I didn't want to go. I wasn't ready to feel anything like that, not yet; I just wanted to feel him, preferably deep in me. I looked right into those two Hershey's Kisses he called eyes and nodded. "Mulder... you know... it's going to hurt this time, if you've never done this."

"I know," I told him. It's going to happen sometime, right? So it might as well be now. I trust you; I told you that."

"You're sure." A statement from him, not a question. He believed me, but I think he was afraid I'd wind up being sorry, at least that night. I had no intention of ever being sorry, no matter how much it hurt this time. The obvious fact that guys kept going back for more meant it had to improve, and no matter how much I didn't want to let him any further inside my feelings right now, I wanted to keep this thing between us, whatever it was, going. I counted on having plenty of opportunity to see how much better having Walter fuck the living daylights out of me could get.

"Yeah. I'm sure. I'm all yours, big guy."

"Remember you said that," he growled. God, Walter growling was like - oh, shit, I can't describe it. That growl of his - I could feel it playing with my ears, I could feel it rumbling in my chest, I could feel it going straight to my cock. Then I felt him reaching over to where he'd left the Astroglide, and then, again, cool, slick fingers reaching down, behind, in. It wasn't better than the rimming, just different, hitting different nerves; when that first finger made it inside me, it felt incredibly right being there. Oh yeah, I was all his, no problem. He started working it in me, and I started seeing stars. Seriously. If the doctor did his exam the way Walter was working me, I'd beg to go for physicals anytime. Walter's fingers, my prostate... heaven just might exist, I decided, and Walter was the man in charge of admission.

After an eternity, or maybe thirty seconds, since it all felt alike right then, Walter decided I was far enough out of my body to be ready. He started pulling his fingers out slowly, to the accompaniment of my moaning in hitherto unknown languages. It wasn't fair - he was stopping with those fingers. I barely felt him moving my body, pushing my legs apart. What I was finally aware of was Walter's erection working into me as he thrust slowly, waiting to see if I was handling it. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I nodded. And yeah, it hurt, despite the prepping, but it was okay -actually, it was more than okay. I'd asked him for this, and here it was, me turning into part of him. He'd told me to remember I was all his? Hell, at the moment there wasn't any possible way to forget that. The pain started easing a little, and I must have started breathing again, though I hadn't realized I'd stopped. That seemed to be Walter's signal to start working on serious thrusting.

Finally I really started to relax, and then I could tell that it didn't hurt that badly; in fact, I was starting to work into some kind of rhythm with him, and it was actually feeling not that bad at all; it would probably have felt really good if I hadn't already been hurting. I could see there was some serious potential for getting way into this, and the whole trip of having Walter Skinner literally riding roughshod all over me was feeling pretty incredible all by itself. I moved my hand down and started working on myself, letting go as much as I could into what he was doing with me. I came before he did, splattering over my hand and both of our chests, and I'd never felt anything like it before. I have to have screamed; I know it. I'm surprised I didn't break his eardrums when I think back to it.

Then I made my mistake. Once I sort of came back down, while Walter was still screwing me to pieces for his own benefit, I looked straight up into his face. I'm supposed to be on this huge Quest for the Truth, right? You know, sometimes the truth is something you really don't want to see. Sometimes it's too much to handle. I certainly couldn't handle what I saw in those eyes, not then at any rate. I knew what it looked like, I could tell what it felt like, and it was way, way too close to home for me, especially coming down off of that cloud I'd been on. Even as Walter was growling and coming like the proverbial freight train, I could feel myself starting to cry, which my mind was telling me was a bad thing. It wasn't a loud bawl or anything stupid like that, but it was a lot more than just damp eyes.

Walter was down on me, his weight barely supported by his forearms, as he withdrew from me, and he looked... well, pretty scared, actually. He reached a hand up to my face, strong, gentle fingers wiping tears away from my cheek. "Mulder... are you all right? You should have said something..."

"I'm fine. I'm okay." I looked up at his face again. Incredibly intense concern, and, I was afraid, maybe a lot more than that. Shit. Sex - sex, I could handle. Sex was a great way to get away from problems for me; it had been for years. As long as it didn't come with a cargo hold's worth of baggage. I hoped to hell that the look I was getting wasn't baggage. Phoebe and Diana had left me with more than enough for an eternity. "It was... just... pretty intense, you know?"

He nodded down at me. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." More wiping my face with those fingers, and then a kiss that could have sucked out my guts. Another one of those mind-blowing kisses of his. Shit.

This was all my idea, wasn't it?

I woke up around three in the morning. Walter was sleeping the sleep of the just, so I decided to do what was obviously the best thing. I slid out of bed and headed back to my room to get a few more hours' sleep and maybe sort out what was going on, see if I could get away from the unpleasantness and messiness of feelings.

He knocked on the connecting door around seven, looked in on me. I had just gotten out of the shower. "Mulder... are you okay? I woke up, you weren't there."

I looked over at him as I toweled my hair. "I'm - look, I don't know. You said something about not asking for what I want because I might get it?"

"And?" He stared at me over his glasses rims.

"I don't know. I just don't know. I need some space this morning." I needed a whole lot of space, was what I needed. What I needed was for one of us to get called back to DC this morning so I could get the hell away from him. All I'd wanted was some nice, uncomplicated, hot sex for a few nights during a miserable business trip, and what I'd wound up with instead was a man who was threatening to push every button I had just by being there. Damn it, couldn't he have just wanted a free fuck? But no, I had to go yank his emotional chain. The damn videos were a hell of a lot safer, even if they had gotten boring.

I spent the day up to my neck in the damned heat tracking down witnesses. I shouldn't have had to reinvent the wheel, but I'd gotten so frustrated between the morons from hell investigating the case and my having to avoid Walter Skinner that I needed to get out and do something. Unfortunately, what this did was make the case that much worse. No, I didn't fuck anything up, but the witness from the mall toy store had also been involved in the sighting of a huge furry thing - like a Teletubby, she said - that she connected to a murder in one of the 'burbs. Dummies. Teletubbies. What else was there in this town - marauding Barbies with miniature handguns and knives running loose in a gang? If I ever go back to Saint Louis, it'll be too soon, trust me.

I even missed dinner, which meant I didn't have to deal with Walter or with Scully wondering why I was bummed. I didn't want pressure and I didn't want solicitous. I wanted a cold shower, a cold beer, and a hot beef barbecue sandwich. I managed all three before I crashed early and slept poorly. I told Scully I would be out tracking a lead. I headed instead to a dive that came strongly recommended by one of the saner agents in the Regional Office the day before. It had been a decent enough place, as promised - cold beer, hot food, hotter waitresses, and some fairly colorful local characters that strongly bore watching. One of the local girls - the term "lady" might be more accurate in her case - had been making pretty friendly with me, but I wasn't interested in pay-for-play action. Really, I wasn't interested in action, period. I didn't have that much to drink, either, so I couldn't figure why I slept so badly that night.

Breakfast the next morning was interesting. I met Scully in the coffee shop, ravenously hungry despite having stuffed three barbecue sandwiches, a plate of slaw, and a small pitcher of beer down my face the night before, and ordered a "heart attack special," as Scully termed it. I wish she'd get off me about my eating. My cholesterol's plenty low, always has been. No Skinner. Half an hour later, still no Skinner. Finally, while I was working on coffee, in stumbled our esteemed supervisor, looking vaguely like he'd survived a Reticulan attack. Scully thought he was sick. So did I, at first. Then I realized what had kept me awake. Three a.m. - that was when I'd heard his door slam. He'd been out until three. Then - shit, he'd been out on a bender, hadn't he? Walter Skinner had a hangover? That had to be a first for him in years. The man was just too tightly controlled to do things like that on a work night - or at all, really, I supposed. But hell, we were out of town, and I wasn't the only agent who'd done incredibly stupid things on the road.

I mean... the only other thing I could think of was that he was upset about something. And it couldn't be me - I mean, what had I done? Just because I wanted some breathing room? No, that didn't make too much sense. The Great Stone Face didn't do that kind of thing. Besides, this was the man who'd head locked me twice and had me put in five-point restraints; why the hell would he have gotten smashed just because I didn't want a capital-R Relationship? He should have been happy about that, I figured. So I realized that he'd been on a bored-and-out-of-town bender. Perfectly reasonable.

I spent the rest of the week, what little there was of it, working my ass off and embarrassing the regional boys totally. There was gonna be one hell of a report to the Director about ineptitude if I had any say in the matter - and this time, I did. Skinner was producing a report of his own that basically recommended execution for the agents he wasn't mad at. Scully thought he was coming down a little hard on these guys, but I thought they deserved it. Hell, he was working pretty damn hard too since he'd worn off that hangover. Almost like he had something to prove. I was just glad he wasn't proving it to me.

I sat beside Scully on the flight home on Friday. Skinner was across the aisle from us, beating on his laptop like he was writing the Great American Novel - I figured it was the third draft of "Why I Recommend the Death Penalty for the Regional Office." He'd been fighting off a stew who really had it bad for him - she kept coming around persistently to practically beg him to drink. At one point I thought she was gonna throw herself across the laptop and force a miniature down his throat. It was too damn much to contemplate, so I headed back to the lavatory. Airplane restrooms are a phenomenon unto themselves; about the only thing they're really good for is making sure that making sure that your initiation into the Mile High Club will throw your back out no matter what position you're in. Don't ask me what I know about the Mile High Club. I missed out on enrolling Alex Krycek in it, that's all I'll say.

I got back and saw that Skinner had gone for the booze, finally. I guess the stew had made him an offer he couldn't refuse. I was sort of worried after that hangover he'd acquired the morning before so I took a good look over to make sure he was okay. He looked back over at me. I pulled back pretty much like an ostrich, hoping he hadn't seen me. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea, whatever that was; I wasn't all that sure of what the right idea was myself. I didn't say anything to him; in fact, I don't think I spoke to Scully for most of the flight either. She'd gotten it into her head that something was wrong with me, kept asking if I was okay, if something had been on my mind for the past couple of days. I really didn't want to talk about it - what was I gonna say, I'd been boffing Skinner and I was feeling Way Too Much Pressure from him?

So we landed at what used to be National Airport and will never be Ronald Reagan International Airport to me. On a Friday night. Which is sort of like trying to get across Times Square at rush hour, if you get my drift. The whole fucking universe is there and they all think that your suitcase is theirs. We got through the usual stupid landing and luggage hurdles pretty well - there are certain advantages to a badge, I admit - and then I had to get home. I really didn't want either to fight for or to pay for a cab, but Scully had some kind of lame excuse about her mother. Why she was staring dead on at Skinner when she told me loudly that she had to color her mom's hair in ten minutes beat the hell out of me, but unfortunately he heard her and decided to offer me a ride. I tried to duck out of the offer. It was the last thing I wanted. "Mulder. I said, *I will give you a lift*." Shit.

The last thing I wanted was to be alone in the front seat of Skinner's Buick with Walter Skinner. All right, his Roadmaster was the most comfortable thing on four wheels - hell, it would have made a perfectly good efficiency apartment - but if I had to be in the damn thing alone with Skinner, God only knew what was going to happen. Probably a homicide. Oh, yeah, homicide was coming right up - he'd just passed the exit for my place and was heading towards Arlington. "Uh, sir? That was the turn-off for my place."

"I know." Smug. He knew damn well what he was doing, didn't he? Goddamn bastard.

"Then, what...?"

"You're coming home with me."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

Skinner just smiled, watching the traffic. One more time - goddamn bastard.

"I thought I'd made it pretty clear that I didn't want this." My teeth were clenched to the point of dealing with a nice case of TMJ. Just like Skinner's lockjaw, it struck me. Fuck.

"You did," Skinner said to me. "I just don't happen to care what you want."

"They have a name for this in the Commonwealth of Virginia, sir. They call it 'kidnapping'."

Skinner pulled his cell-phone out of his trench coat and threw it at me. "You wanna report a crime, Agent Mulder? Go ahead." Shit, he was pushing this one all the way, wasn't he? Wasn't Saint Louis enough, damn it? What the hell else did he want to get from me? I figured I'd pushed my luck with my mouth already; if this was how he reacted to the kidnapping line, I'd better try keeping my mouth shut now. Why the hell did there have to be so much traffic out that night? It must have taken the better part of an hour from the time he threw his phone at me to his pulling in at his condo, and I had to sit there biting my lip the whole time to keep from putting my foot into things even deeper.  
**************************** 

His building. I really must have wanted to see what was playing out here, because I went right along like a sheep. Hell, I was still carrying Skinner's damned cell phone. I'd have started an argument on the elevator, only it was nearly as crowded as the fucking airport.

Skinner opened the door, let me in ahead of him, closed and locked the door. Okay, time to have this shit out, now. "Look you son-of-a-bitch, I don't know what you think you're doing, but..."

Skinner dumped our suitcases beside his coat rack and took off his coat. "Why did you dump me?"

That I hadn't quite expected. Dumped? Oh, hell, I should have known it. I'd been right to get upset at how he'd been looking at me. I should have known, should have thought about this. Now he was projecting, wasn't he? "What the hell are you thinking? It was one night and you're making it a federal case..."

"Two nights," Skinner said. "Was it just some kind of weird impulse gratification for you?" All I could do was shake my head. Of course it hadn't been... but, shit, two nights, what'd he want from me? A fucking proposal? Jesus... Skinner crossed his arms, pinned me down with his patented glare. "I'd really like to know. You go to a hell of a lot of trouble to get me into your bed, make me want...," he stopped, shook his head, then continued. "Then you pull this disappearing act on me."

"I was right there all the time, working the case." Well, I had been, hadn't I? I did my job the whole fucking time I was there... all I'd wanted was some space, some time to myself. Wasn't that fair? What was the problem with that? Just because he'd been leaning on me for... oh, fuck. He hadn't, had he? I'd been so damned busy being scared of how I thought he'd been feeling... because I didn't want to follow where that line of thinking went if I'd picked it up. Yeah, I did know where it'd take me if I thought about it.

"You might has well have been in the Antarctic. I wake up, you're gone. You won't talk to me; Scully gives all your reports. You even changed your damned room...what the hell had I done to make you suddenly treat me like a stalker?"

I couldn't look at Skinner. "It wasn't you." No, it was me. Like I was gonna admit that, though.

"Then what was it, Mulder? Just a one-night stand? Clearing up a little boredom on the road?"

"No."

"Then what? I didn't come after you, Mulder. You made it very plain what you wanted and you got it. Was that what it was all about? You wanted something, you got it, end of story?"

"No, dammit!".

"Then what was it, Mulder? Tell me, because I really need a clue here."

"I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. It wasn't supposed to happen at all, I guess. I'm sorry," I must have been whispering by then. I could barely hear myself. I didn't really want to; I felt pretty much like shit. Which was fair, I suppose. I tried to step around Skinner and get to the door; slinking out with my tail between my legs would have been just about the right effect, I thought.

Shit, I'd really ticked him off. He grabbed me by my jacket and slammed me back against the door. "Oh no. This isn't how it goes, Mulder. You don't screw me, then fuck with my mind and then just go home."

What's that old psych litany - mad, sad, or glad? I was sad for about half a second that he felt hurt, that I'd done it - then I realized that he really had just slammed me into a wall. Mad set right back in. I grabbed Skinner's wrists as hard as I could. "What the hell do you want, Skinner?! An apology? OK. I'm sorry you fucked me. Is that good enough?"

Skinner's hands were shaking; he was still holding on to my suit jacket, but he was nearly pounding my chest. "No. Why did you leave?"

"I don't know! Is that what you want to hear?! I don't fucking know!"

He loosened his grip on me; I let up on his wrists, quit cutting off the circulation to his hands. He was looking at me like he was really worried about something. "You're afraid. Tell me what you're afraid of." I couldn't handle looking at him. It was getting too fucking intense again. And for some obscure reason, something was nagging me into feeling guilty. Hell, maybe I'd been feeling everything I said. That still didn't give me the right to abuse him the way I had been doing. "Tell me."

I couldn't, maybe I was a fucking coward about this. I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to say. What was I afraid of? At the moment, damn near everything. Of Skinner wanting more than I could give him. Of me needing more than I wanted to have to need from him. Of - shit. "All right then, I'll tell *you*," Skinner whispered to me, shaking his wrists out of what little grip I had left on them. "This," he continued, releasing my lapels and running his hands gently over my shoulders. "You're afraid of this."

"And this...," he continued again, moving up to my face. He had my head anchored to face him, and he was giving me that pinned-in-place stare again. I should have known better than to look; I should have kept my eyes closed, but I didn't. He had me stuck there like a deer in a pair of headlights. I reached up, grabbed his wrists again, but didn't have the strength left to pull him away from my face. Fuck. I could feel all of my energy draining into my feet. I couldn't have moved if the building was on fire. Why the hell did he have to do this to me?

"You're afraid I might do this." He leaned forward and started nibbling at my ear. He'd found out about that a few nights before in bed. Between the actual event right then and my remembering the previous events, I was pretty much on my way to turning into a puddle on the floor. "And that I might say...," Skinner whispered into my neck. I knew what was coming. Oh, fuck, no... anything but having to deal with it... "I love you," right into my mouth, no more than a whisper again, just before he kissed me.

Three words like a knife in my gut. Skinner just didn't get it, did he? They'd taken my sister, my parents had split up, Phoebe had knocked me flat into the ground, Diana had stomped on my bones that were lying there, and Alex, even though I'd never touched him, had managed to drag the remains of my heart off to whatever rathole he was skulking around in now. If you really wanted to hurt me, all you had to do was tell me that. That phrase was the usual announcement that you were going to do that to me. I'd trusted Skinner, I'd wanted him, still did, as badly as anything, but see, I'd known since the other night in bed that he was gonna do this to me if I didn't get away... and I didn't want this from him, of all people. I mean, the others had been bad enough, but fuck it, I lo- -- oh, crap. Oh, Jesus. I had to stop before I actually thought the whole thing out loud to myself.

I must have started to turn to that damn puddle for real; I must have crumpled. With my luck, I probably actually passed out for a second because I don't remember doing it, but I obviously started to collapse, because I suddenly realized that Skinner wasn't holding my face any more; he was holding me up against his chest, rocking me back and forth. I wondered where he had the knife. He could reach my back easily enough.

I finally realized that he was whispering something in my ear, that he had been. "I've got you now, it's OK. It's all gonna be OK. You're mine, I've got you. Shh..." Over and over. I could feel both of his hands. Maybe he didn't have a knife after all? Wouldn't that be a switch.

My head was tucked up against his neck. I kissed it, kissed him for the first time in days. Hell, I'd been crazy enough to let myself get kicked when I knew they were gonna do it to me; at least this time it wasn't clear from the start that that's what was gonna happen. Maybe I was safer this time. "What the hell do we do now?"

I didn't even realize I'd thought that one out loud.

"Now, " Skinner whispered, kissing me on the forehead, "we eat." The bastard let go of me. He actually let go. What the hell did he think he was doing, huh? I'd just put on my "kick me" sign, and the man was willing to pass up taking advantage of me - whether by ravishing me or by wrecking my life - for a meal? He had to be the devil incarnate, that was all I could figure.

"You're hungry?!"

"If you had any sense, you would be, too."

"I thought we'd already established that I don't have any," I told him. I tailed him into the kitchen, where I discovered surprise number two: Walter Skinner could cook, and quite well at that. Lentil soup, which I usually don't like because I suspect it's good for me, but was really delicious in this case - especially after airplane food - and homemade biscuits, made from real ingredients that he actually measured out of a canister. I'd been kidnapped before by less attractive people, and they didn't usually either sweep me off my feet or cook for me. This was a real improvement over the usual line of being made off with. I could deal with this type - oh, yeah, could I ever. I had to ask. "So I shouldn't plan on being kidnapped on a regular basis?"

"No, I don't plan to make a habit of it. I'm no one's Daddy and I won't be a one night stand. I want something more from this."

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. That word a while back there had been bad enough. The "L" one. Now here he was throwing the "R" one at me. The one with a bunch of syllables. The one that's even worse because I'd been therewith Phoebe and Diana. If love meant "hurt me," relationship meant "torture me, suck me dry, and throw my carcass to the jackals." Diana had done that quite thoroughly enough for any two lesser mortals. I remembered what Scully had said to me once about panic. When in doubt, remember to keep breathing. Oxygen is good. I took a deep breath, and then a few deliberate breaths. My head cleared slightly. I chanted to myself, "This is not Diana. This is not Diana. This is not Diana," while he just kept on eating and occasionally checking me out of the corner of his eye. No, he certainly wasn't Diana. And, to face facts, I was the one who'd come full tilt after him in the first place. I hadn't started the panicking until I remembered that sometimes it's not all just about sex. And Walter Skinner was, for whatever it was worth, worth a hell of a lot more than a quick fuck. I'd trusted him all that time until I'd panicked, hadn't I? God, I can be stupid sometimes. "So do I."

"Let's go to bed." That from Skinner, and it sounded like a fine idea to me at this stage. So I was surprised as hell when making our way to the bedroom wound up lacking something in the "ripping off each other's clothing and flinging ourselves bodily on each other" department. In fact, it resembled nothing so much as my days at Philips Exeter getting ready for bed with the roommates. Clothes off, hung up so we wouldn't get nailed by the housemasters for messiness, teeth brushed, everything, in fact, but my roomie Steve Winthrop's insistence on mumbling Compline to himself from his Book of Common Prayer before bed. Last I saw Steve, he was graduating from Yale Divinity School. If Skinner had pulled out a prayer book - well, I did have my gun.

Back to the bedroom. King-sized bed again, looking really comfortable, with important things like lots of pillows on it. I was pretty damned tired, but I was still having visions of Skinner picking me up, throwing me on the bed, and having at me. Really pleasant visions, full of seriously hot and heavy potential. When he kissed me and started rubbing my neck, I could feel my switches getting flipped everywhere in my body. That was a lot more than old Stevie ever did for me. So I nearly went back for the gun when I started leaning into him and groaning and he pushed me off of him, even though he was still working on my neck. What the hell was I doing wrong? "What...?"

"Tonight, we just sleep." At least he was smiling. "We need time, Mulder. There'll be time for everything, but let's take it a little slower than we have, OK? Besides, I really do have a headache."

I had to be honest. It had been a hell of a trip, thank God it had ended on a Friday so I could recover, and my sinuses go crazy on airplanes from the cabin pressure and the air circulation. "Me, too." He pulled me over to the bed -one part of my visions realized, anyway - and I slid in beside him, curled up against him, and pulled the sheet up over me to combat the air conditioning. He slid an arm around me and pulled me all the way against him, so I abandoned the pillow idea in favor of settling down where my head quite naturally belonged, right on his shoulder with my face up against his neck. Somewhere along the line I fell asleep - not very far along the line, I imagine. I'd only shared a bed with a snorer two other times - the other two nights I'd been with him -but I was starting to get used to it.

  
Three a.m., and I was awake. No idea why, I just was. At least I hadn't had a nightmare - and I hadn't had one on either of the other nights I'd slept with Walter Skinner, either. Hell, I could read that message when I thought about it. I turned around, watched him sleeping in the dark, one arm still around me, his head turned slightly away from me. Amazing planes on his face, with the light, what there was of it, highlighting features weirdly. I felt... I don't know... pretty much overcome, sort of by everything, I suppose. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know how to say, would still be afraid to tell him even if I did know how say it. I was glad he was still asleep; it was easier to tell him that way. So I reached over, up, started running fingers over those planes, picking out features, learning him by touch. It was just that one little bit too firm, I suppose, because my stroking did wake him up.

"Mulder?"

"Shh. Let me," I told him. He was semi-awake now, and he was accepting what I'd been giving him so far; no reason not to proceed, even if he didn't know quite what it was about. I wasn't quite sure I understood everything about this myself, but I wanted to do it. I knew he'd enjoy it. So I shushed him, kept on stroking, and watched him close his eyes and relax again.

I'd already mapped his face, learned it by touch just now, would know it if I felt it again, anywhere. That was how I wanted to learn the rest of him. I wanted to know as much about his body as I knew about my own, to be able to reach out, touch him, and say, "That's Walter; I'd know him anywhere," even blindfolded and holding my breath. All of him - not just his mouth, not just that gorgeous piece of muscle and erectile tissue he called a cock. His chest, his navel, lots of other interesting places. All over his body. Bodies like his don't come around very often; it would have been a major sin not to make a study of it for future reference. Especially when everyone concerned thought the job was so pleasant.

Down to Skinner's hips, back up his sides, down his arms; there were acres of Walter to explore, sort of like a mountain range. I wondered if I could really learn all of him at one time. Kissed him , then back down, down to his feet. He was getting hard, no surprise, but no need to bother with that quite yet. I wanted to have some more fun playing with my new toys first.

"Mulder...," he was groaning at me. I liked it. I liked it. Any moment now, he'd be getting me and Jesus confused, and that was just fine with me; it meant I was accomplishing this mission. When was I first taught that actions speak louder than words, anyway?

"Shh," Why waste energy talking? I was down between his legs, had to reach up now to take hold of his cock. I must have been doing something right with it; Walter was moaning like there was no tomorrow, and knotting up the sheets in his fists trying to stay anchored. That's always a nice place to be for a while. The next thing to do, while I had him where I wanted him, was to learn to recognize him by taste. There could be an emergency sometime, all the power out, and I'd have to be able to find Walter even if he couldn't yell for help. This could be a very useful identification tool.

I'd only done this once before, really, a few nights before with Walter, but I didn't think I needed a refresher course to figure out what I was doing by the time my mouth made it over to his erection. I'd had blowjobs in my life; I had a good idea of the usual drill. And, as I'd found out the other night, my head seemed to have a weakness for gravitating right towards this spot. Again, I was obviously doing something right. He had his hands in my hair now, groaning under me; thank God he didn't do that thing they do in the movies where the guy grabs your head and jams your mouth further on down him, but I really didn't think he'd be that kind of jerk anyway, now did I? Hell, if I'd thought that, I'd never have put the moves on him in the first place.

I'd figured out this time how to avoid some of the challenges from earlier in the week. I managed not to act like a surprised idiot when he came this time. Oh, I almost forgot - one thing I'd learned from having being blown by Phoebe, besides the "no teeth" rule? Don't spit. Actually, I can't figure out why she or Diana did that. I could live on the stuff.

I slid back up to find the rest of the big hunk I'd been entertaining just then. Pulled myself atop him, and kissed him as hard as I could. Walter was damp with sweat, salty like his come. I could taste both when I kissed his face.

Walter was trying to recover faster than he was ready to, worrying about me. "Give me a minute here, and I'll make you feel just as good as I do now."

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine." No lie. I was.

Walter moved a hand down to take hold of me. Yeah, I was hard, I knew it. But you know, that really wasn't the point here. Enough about me, you know? "Feels like you're better than 'fine'," he told me. He purred it, I swear he purred it.

I had to reach down and disengage him from me. I hated to do it, but it was what, after three in the morning, and I'd accomplished my mission; time to go back to sleep, just like he'd suggested last night. I could figure he'd sleep pretty darn well after that. "This time was just for you. Like you said, we have time." I wriggled back against him, pressed against his hip, curling around him.

Walter squeezed an arm back around me. "I love you, too." I guess he got my message.

 

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"Sinner's Prayer" - A Mexico Prequel  
By JiM

Rated: PG  
Archive: X/, slashX, Allslash, anyone else, please ask.  
This is a companion piece to "Got My Mojo Working", by MJ. Sequel to "Plans" and "St Louis Blues", part of the "I Still Have Plans to Go To Mexico" universe. It's all getting rather confusing, really.  
But...the series is now:  
1) "Plans" and "St Louis Blues"  
2) "Mojo" and "Sinner's Prayer  
3) "I Still Have Plans to Go To Mexico"  
4) "Three Men in a Boat" (WIP)

These can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html and http://members.aol.com/MJR91/ficintro.html

Feedback greatly appreciated at:   
Note: The prequels all take their names from various blues tunes -- check this one out on Clapton's "From the Cradle" album - amazing.

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"Sinner's Prayer"  
by JiM

Stupid. That's what he was, plain shit stupid. There may be no fool like an old fool, but there is certainly no one more foolish than a middle-aged man who fancies himself in love. Especially a middle-aged bureaucrat in love with a younger man, a subordinate, someone so driven and obsessed that he teetered on the knife-edge of sanity on his *good* days ... hell, Walter, why not just swallow your gun and have done with it?

Such were Walter Skinner's thoughts as he fended off the pretty stewardess' third attempt to save him from the tragedy of flying sober. Getting drunk right now wouldn't solve anything; he knew, he'd already tried it earlier in the week. When he'd realized that Mulder wasn't being skittish, wasn't needing space to sort out his head about their new relationship, wasn't being shy... when he'd finally realized that Mulder simply didn't want to see him outside of working hours and as little as possible within them, that's when he'd drunk himself into a stupor. Wednesday night.

Thursday morning had been hell and he'd welcomed it. Was glumly amused at Mulder's shocked look when he and Scully had met Skinner in the restaurant for breakfast. Walter knew what he looked like; pale, dark-smudged eyes, a greenish cast to his skin that only those who have clocked hours on their knees slumped against cold porcelain can appreciate. There was no conversation at all as he watched them toy with their breakfasts and he drank four cups of black coffee with grim purpose. He had been startled from a reverie by Scully's cool fingers against his forehead.

"Are you sick, sir?"

He shook his head, let her feed him aspirin and didn't look at Mulder. Who didn't say a word to him except as it related to the case for the rest of the day. Just like Tuesday and Wednesday.

Now it was Friday afternoon and they were flying home to D.C. Mulder and Scully sat together across the aisle, talking quietly. Skinner had opened his briefcase as soon as they were airborne and had doggedly begun to work his way through the piles of reports and forms needed to metaphorically crucify the lead agent who'd so mishandled the possessed toy case that had drawn them all to the St. Louis office in the first place.

Skinner figured that she deserved to be at least as miserable as he was. The woman had truly merited summary execution; her refusal to even consider certain types of evidence had led directly to the death of two civilians before they had caught the killers. Skinner didn't actually expect her to believe that a life-sized purple Teletubby was responsible for murdering rent boys in a three block area of the factory district. However, to dismiss the evidence that pointed to the bankrupt toy manufacturer whose factory had been shut down on that stretch was sloppy work, pure and simple. He got a certain vicious pleasure in translating that opinion into suitable bureaucrat -ese in his final report to the Director.

Mulder got up suddenly and strode down the aisle. Walter could feel the muscles in his neck tense with the effort to not turn and crane after him. Shit. He capped his pen and threw it into his briefcase.

"Sir?" Scully's voice was unusually tentative. His stomach clenched. He'd hoped they would all be able to get through this and behave as if nothing had happened. That meant *not* talking about it. He looked up at her with his most quelling stone-face. She blinked once, then visibly gathered her courage and said, "He's just scared, sir."

He took his glasses off and ran his hands over his face, wishing the throbbing behind his eyes would stop. Taking a deep breath, he made his decision. Not looking at her, he asked, "Of what?"

From the corner of his eye, he could see her shrug helplessly.

"Help me out here, Scully. I'm way out of my depth." He looked at her then and was surprised by the gentle sympathy in her eyes.

"He once told me that he 'didn't do love well'," she offered hesitantly.

He snorted. "Show me someone who does." She smiled ruefully back at him and they were silent until Mulder returned, clambering back over Scully to take the window seat again.

The stewardess came back again to ply him with alcohol, and this time he gave in to temptation and ordered coffee and Irish mist. When it arrived, he unscrewed the irritating little bottle and dumped it into the coffee. As he lifted the cup to take his first sip, Mulder leaned forward slightly to look across at him. For a moment, he met Mulder's gaze and was shaken by the wistful concern he saw in them. Then Mulder seemed to close some sort of internal storm windows and he looked away.

Walter Skinner put the cup of coffee down untasted and spent the next two hours thinking very hard. He did what he was best at -situational review, analysis, decision making, and planning. By the time the plane touched down, he was ready to put his plan into action.

  
Arriving at National Airport at 8 pm on a Friday evening is not a wise thing to do. People with sense spend much time and money trying to avoid that very fate. FBI agents are at the mercy of careless and occasionally hostile booking agents and Skinner, Scully, and Mulder were obviously doing penance for some sin. Skinner just sighed and waited for his luggage to make an appearance as the mass of humanity seethed around him and his two silent companions. In fact, it suited his plans very well.

Scully's bag appeared first and she scooped it up with an expression of real relief. Skinner wanted to apologize to her, but there was nothing to say.

"Scully? Can I catch a ride home with you?" The first words Mulder had spoken in three hours.

"Sorry, Mulder, not tonight. I'm supposed to meet my Mom in...half an hour?! I've got to run." She turned and gave Skinner a significant look and he nodded fractionally, suddenly wishing he could grab her head and kiss her the way she had once thanked him. Some day, if this worked out, he just might, he thought, and grinned a little.

"I'll give you a lift, Agent Mulder."

Mulder's face was a study in well-contained panic. "That's not necessary, sir, I'll just get on the Metro..."

"Mulder. I said, *I will give you a lift*." Command voice, as his father had once called it, was a valuable tool. In this situation, it was a gift from God. Mulder nodded sulkily. Scully smiled at him again, said, "See you Monday, Mulder, sir," and vanished into the crowds swirling around them.

Their bags appeared, one after the other, soon after that. Skinner led the way to the parking garage, Mulder striding two paces behind him, trailing his own thundercloud of resentment. Skinner spotted his car and angled toward it, Mulder changing course automatically to follow him. When they reached his car, Skinner opened the trunk and threw both of their suitcases into it, yanking Mulder's off his shoulder without a word.

God, he hated this car. It was sensible, stylish, a conservative blue. Like every other car he'd ever bought, every two years, since his career had begun. For one intense moment, he longed for a beat up pickup truck. Someday, he told himself, and squelched the demon of rebellion that seemed to have been born in him since meeting this man. He slammed the trunk and went around and opened the passenger door, holding it open for Mulder with an expression so neutral that Mulder's protest died on his lips and he got into the car silently.

Mulder remained passive and Skinner stayed silent while they drove out of the garage, merging with the streams of cars, buses, taxis, into one river of red taillights inching along through the evening drizzle. It was only when Skinner drove past the exit for Alexandria that Mulder spoke up.

"Uh, sir? That was the turn-off for my place."

"I know."

"Then, what...?"

"You're coming home with me."

He could almost feel Mulder swelling with righteous indignation. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

Skinner merely smiled grimly, watching traffic behind them for his opportunity to merge.

"I thought I'd made it pretty clear that I didn't want this," Mulder said from between gritted teeth.

"You did," Skinner said as they slid into a lane on the highway. "I just don't happen to care what you want." Or *think* you want, he added under his breath.

"They have a name for this in the Commonwealth of Virginia, sir. They call it 'kidnapping'."

Skinner pulled out his cell-phone and tossed it into Mulder's lap. "You wanna report a crime, Agent Mulder? Go ahead."

The younger man glared at him, then folded his arms and stared straight ahead. He said nothing for the rest of the journey. Skinner gave him credit for his sulk stamina when the drive home took over an hour and it passed in frosty silence. He hoped he was right about this, because if he weren't, oh, if he weren't... he knew he'd wind up with gunblueing on his lips by morning. Oh Christ, let him be right.

 He could see Mulder thinking about balking when he finally parked the car in the garage under his building. Since he wasn't up to wrestling with Mulder, he merely opened the trunk and took both bags and started for the elevator. On any other occasion, he thought he might have enjoyed the outraged expression on Mulder's face. The ride up in the half-full elevator was stone silent, but Skinner was conscious of a certain building tension, a rising pressure of emotion in the man next to him, and he knew that Mulder was primed to explode the moment they were in private.

Which he did. Skinner opened the door, ushered his thunderous companion in before him, closed and locked the door and then Mulder was in full cry.

"Look you son-of-a-bitch, I don't know what you think you're doing, but..."

Skinner placed the suitcases carefully beside the coat rack and took off his coat.

"Why did you dump me?" he asked quietly.

That checked Mulder's headlong plaint for a moment, before he plunged on. "What the hell are you thinking? It was one night and you're making it a federal case..."

"Two nights."

Once again, Mulder was checked by that calm voice. He blinked in confusion and drew breath to argue again. Skinner said, "Was it just some kind of weird impulse gratification for you?"

Mulder only shook his head, mouth stubbornly closed.

Skinner crossed his arms, fixing him with a glare. "I'd really like to know. You go to a hell of a lot of trouble to get me into your bed, make me want...," he stopped, shook his head a little as if to clear it, then continued. "Then you pull this disappearing act on me."

"I was right there all the time, working the case." A weak protest and Mulder's eyes said that he knew it even as he said it.

"You might has well have been in the Antarctic. I wake up, you're gone. You won't talk to me; Scully gives all your reports. You even changed your damned room...what the hell had I done to make you suddenly treat me like a stalker?" Skinner hated the plaintive note that suddenly crept into his voice.

Mulder ran his hand through his hair and wouldn't look up at Skinner. "It wasn't you," he said finally.

"Then what was it, Mulder? Just a one-night stand? Clearing up a little boredom on the road?"

"No." The voice that answered him was low.

"Then what?" Skinner snapped. "I didn't come after you, Mulder. You made it very plain what you wanted and you got it. Was that what it was all about? You wanted something, you got it, end of story?"

"No, dammit!" Mulder's eyes blazed and his fists were clenched.

"Then what was it, Mulder? Tell me, because I really need a clue here."

"I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. It wasn't supposed to happen at all, I guess." Mulder seemed to visibly deflate somehow, losing his anger in a guilty rush. "I'm sorry," he said again softly, and tried to step around Skinner and get to the door.

Skinner's plan went right out the window in a rush of pure rage. He grabbed Mulder by his jacket lapels and slammed him back against the door. "Oh no," he hissed into the surprised man's face. "This isn't how it goes, Mulder. You don't screw me, then fuck with my mind and then just go home."

Something flickered through Mulder's eyes, too quick to be identified, then the anger was back and his hands locked painfully on Skinner's wrists. "What the hell do you want, Skinner?! An apology? OK. I'm sorry you fucked me. Is that good enough?"

Skinner's hands shook with anger; they nearly trembled against Mulder's chest. But his voice was steady and dangerously low. "No. Why did you leave?"

Hounded, scared and angry, Mulder finally cracked. "I don't know! Is that what you want to hear?! I don't fucking know!"

The words were like a cool breeze against Skinner's flushed face. He had been right; his analysis was right. It was going to work. All he had to do was prove it to Mulder now. All the angry tension began to flow out of him. He knew that Mulder could feel it as the other man's grip on his wrists loosened in confusion.

"You're afraid," Skinner said gently. "Tell me what you're afraid of."

Mulder's glance darted around the room wildly, looking anywhere but at Skinner. He shook his head.

"Tell me."

Mulder couldn't, Skinner could see it in his eyes. He felt a rush of tenderness for him, realizing finally that Mulder wanted this, too. It was if he were no more than a half-tame animal, starving, but unable to take food from someone's hand.

"All right then, I'll tell *you*," Skinner said softly. "This," he released the crushed lapels and stroked his hands lightly over Mulder's shoulders. "You're afraid of this."

Mulder shook his head.

"And this...," Skinner's hands slid up to cup the younger man's face, lightly grazing against the five o'clock shadow. Mulder's head was immobilized, frozen in Skinner's grip. His eyes flicked up to look into Skinner's and were trapped there. In desperation, he grabbed at Skinner's wrists again, but the other man was immovable, implacable, unyielding.

"You're afraid I might do this," Skinner leaned forward and nuzzled at Mulder's ear. He nearly smiled at the gasp that was wrung from Mulder. "And that I might say...," Skinner whispered, lips brushing against Mulder's throat. There was a small, terrified moan from deep in that throat and Skinner wanted to soothe that fear. Soon, he promised Mulder silently, soon.

"I love you," he breathed across Mulder's mouth, just before touching his lips to Mulder's.

Lightly, the touch was no more than the brush of a moth's wing, but Mulder seemed to shatter. He made a strangled sound, the parched shadow of a sob, and tried to fold up in pain and terror but only managed to curl himself into Skinner's embrace. Skinner caught and held him easily, rocking him gently.

Mulder stood and trembled against Skinner for a long time and it seemed that he did not hear what Skinner was murmuring to him, over and over. "I've got you now, it's OK. It's all gonna be OK. You're mine, I've got you. Shh..." He didn't repeat the fatal phrase, but he knew that Mulder could hear it in every word. /I love you/

Stupid, he grinned to himself, shit stupid, that's what you are, Walter Skinner. Mulder shifted slightly in his arms and there was a light touch of lips against his throat. Oh yeah. He liked stupid, stupid he could do.

"What the hell do we do now?" Mulder whispered.

"Now, " Skinner whispered, brushing his lips against Mulder's forehead, "we eat." This time, he did laugh at Mulder's bewildered expression as he regretfully unwrapped himself from around Mulder.

"You're hungry?!"

"Yes," Skinner said firmly. "And if you had any sense, you would be, too."

"I thought we'd already established that I don't have any," Mulder said wryly, following him to the kitchen. "But I'm hungry, too. For some reason, I haven't been eating too well this week."

Mulder set the table while Skinner microwaved something from his freezer which turned out to be homemade lentil soup. Skinner noticed that Mulder kept watching him move around the smallish kitchen with a faintly perplexed look on his face. The look deepened to something akin to bewilderment as they ate in a companionable silence. Skinner made Mulder eat a second bowl by using the simple expedient of filling his soup bowl as soon as it was empty and scowling until Mulder picked up his spoon again with a sigh.

"Are you always going to be this bossy?" Mulder asked with a grin, but there was a deeply searching look in his eyes.

"Nope. Tonight is a special case."

"So I shouldn't plan on being kidnapped on a regular basis?"

Skinner grinned, but he sobered as he answered Mulder's real question very carefully. "No, I don't plan to make a habit of it. I'm no one's Daddy and I won't be a one night stand. I want something more from this."

There was pure terror on Mulder's face for just a minute. "So do I," he said, then looked shocked at the sound of his own voice.

Skinner nodded and they finished eating in silence.

 Dinner over and the dishes rinsed, Mulder looked expectantly at Skinner, who didn't fail him, saying, "Let's go to bed." But the bewildered expression trickled back into his eyes when Skinner led him to the bedroom, then handed him a suit hanger and shoved some of his own clothes out of the way so that Mulder could hang his suit in the closet. As a seduction technique, it obviously lacked something for Mulder. He wasn't visibly impressed by the brushing of teeth, although he seemed to appreciate it when Skinner handed him a fresh toothbrush.

Back in the bedroom, his expression brightened when Skinner took hold of him and kissed him very gently. Mulder's mouth was minty and cool and his hands were warm and strong as they slid up Skinner's arms. It felt so good that Skinner almost didn't want to stop, but he lightly pushed Mulder away, laying his forearms on Mulder's shoulders so that he could lightly massage the back of Mulder's neck. The muscles beneath his hands quivered with weary tension and the hazel eyes were panicky as they met his.

"What...?"

Skinner shook his head, hands still stroking, soothing. "Tonight, we just sleep."

Mulder's head dropped as he looked down in confusion and his forehead was suddenly braced on Skinner's chin. His evening beard rasped against Mulder's skin when he next spoke. "We need time, Mulder. And sleep. There'll be time for everything, but let's take it a little slower than we have, OK? Besides, I really do have a headache." Skinner's grin was rueful when Mulder finally looked up.

"Me, too," he confessed with a small grin of his own.

Skinner tugged on his hand and drew him toward the bed. They both settled down with the groans and sighs of exhausted men. So tired that he was dizzy with it, Skinner felt himself nearly liquid with something so unfamiliar, so unexpected that he hesitated to name it. He turned out the light beside the bed and put out his right hand. With a whisper of cotton, Mulder was sliding into the curve of his arm, settling his head onto Skinner's shoulder. Mulder's scent flowed over him, musky and dark, the scent of a tired man at the end of a long day. God, it was good. Then Mulder threw his arm across Skinner's chest and tucked his feet in between Skinner's.

"This is good," Mulder said softly.

"Yeah, it is." Skinner started stroking his fingers through Mulder's hair. Mulder shifted a little, shrugged the sheet up a little higher over his shoulder, then gave a contented little purring noise. Skinner didn't know when he fell asleep.

 He wasn't certain when he awakened, either. At first, it might almost have been a dream, the light stroking of warm fingers against his face. Two fingers traced his brow line, circled his temple, then slid back across his cheekbone to chart the lines of his nose and mouth. A thumb caressed his lips, the near-tickle causing a long slow shiver to roll through him. He opened his eyes to find Mulder leaning over him, propped on one elbow. There was a muffled 3 a.m. quality to the darkness that seemed to whisper around them.

"Mulder?" The weak moonlight revealed only the suggestion of Mulder's face above him.

"Shh. Let me...," he didn't finish his request, and Skinner didn't care. There was something new in Mulder's voice, not tentative, but tender, like the whisper of newly unfurled leaves. Closing his eyes, Skinner gave himself into Mulder's hands unquestioningly.

There was a shifting as Mulder sat up, then those warm hands began to map his body, starting at the crown of his head and flowing down the sides of his throat. They stopped for a moment at the point where neck became shoulder. Mulder's thumbs rested in the hollow of his throat, stroking softly. Then they dragged down the center of Skinner's chest, drawing warm palms after them. Mulder seemed enamored with the structure of his rib cage, shaping it again and again between his hands. Then his touch lightened and he was barely skimming the hair on Skinner's chest with his palms, as if fascinated by its springy texture.

Those warm hands slid down to Skinner's hips, thankfully still narrower than his shoulders, then ran back up his sides to curve and flow down his arms and hook underneath his triceps, as if testing their solidity. Mulder drew his hands down Skinner's forearms. Skinner flexed his hands up and their fingers meshed. They stayed for a moment, palm to palm, then Mulder took a deep breath and loosened his grip, putting Skinner's hands back on the bed, palms down.

Fingertips trailed back up Skinner's arms, then curved back down his chest, brushed lightly over his nipples and continued down the sides of his body, pushing the sheet before them, onto his thighs. Mulder's hands shaped his thighs in the darkness, circling and spiraling lower, tracing the large muscles as they rippled down to his calves. With a firm touch, Mulder learned the arch of Skinner's foot and cataloged the calloused bottoms then cupped his heels before sliding back up the tendons to his calves, gently pulling his legs apart so that Mulder could kneel between them.

It had been so long since someone had touched him with such gentle attention. The very innocence of Mulder's explorations was seductive. Skinner could hear his own breathing, harsh and hot, the only sound beneath the hum of the air conditioning and the whisper of Mulder moving among the tangled sheets. Only now did he become aware of his own trembling. Only now did he realize that he was hard, aching and trying not to writhe with it.

Those gentle hands slid up the inside of Skinner's thighs until Mulder's thumbs rested just below his balls, where they drew tiny circles on damp skin as Mulder sat back on his heels and looked down at him.

"Mulder...," he pleaded hoarsely.

"Shh," Mulder reassured him, his hands sliding up to grip Skinner's straining erection. He caressed, stroked, rubbed, feathered and kneaded with a single- minded concentration that left the older man moaning, hands tangled in the sheets. And then he settled down between Skinner's thighs with another sleepy purr and began his explorations all over again, this time using his lips and tongue. No teasing, just a slow, steady drive toward the edge.

Oral. The man was decidedly oral, the Bureau shrinks had that right. Mulder might not have had much experience giving head, but he had obviously been paying attention. Skinner managed to bring one hand down to stroke Mulder's head, carding through his hair, trying desperately not to yank on it when the younger man began sucking harder. He came with a soundless roar that seemed to echo in his bones long after he had collapsed limply back onto the bed.

When Mulder moved to slide back up the bed, Skinner shivered at the coolness of the air hitting his overheated skin. Then Mulder was covering him again, kissing him deeply, letting him taste the cinnamon and salt of his own ejaculate mixed with Mulder's own rich flavors. Then Mulder was rolling them over, letting Skinner sprawl across his chest. Lips touched Skinner's sweaty forehead and hands moved lightly across his shoulders and neck. Eventually, he gathered together enough energy to say, "Give me a minute here, and I'll make you feel just as good as I do now."

"Don't worry about it," Mulder whispered. "I'm fine."

Skinner's hand slid down to brush lightly across Mulder's erection. "Feels like you're better than 'fine'," he coaxed. Mulder's hand came down and gently grasped Skinner's wrist and drew his hand back up to rest on Mulder's shoulder.

"This time was just for you. Like you said, we have time."

And Skinner, understanding finally, said softly, "I love you, too."

 

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Author: MJ  
Reply to   
Title: Hoochie Coochie Man  
Fandom: XF  
Pairing: M/SK  
Rating: PG-13  
Archive: ArchiveX, Allslash: Yes . Others: Ask; yes if you are already archiving "Mexico"  
Spoilers:"Paper Hearts", "Young at Heart"; "Unusual Suspects" (character mentions) Not a crossover, but a "Homicide: LOTS" guest will appear.  
Summary: Mulder sends Skinner a dubious 302. Prequel to "I Still Have Plans to Go to Mexico" by JiM and MJ

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Hoochie Coochie Man  
By MJ

(Sequel to "St. Louis Blues" and "Got My Mojo Working"; prequel to "I Still Have Plans to Go to Mexico" by MJ and JiM -- as a "Mexico" prequel, it has the requisite blues title, but there's a different musical theme at work herein. No prize for solving the mystery before Skinner does.)

Walter Skinner rubbed his temples. He ought, he knew, to be concentrating on reports this afternoon. He ought to be thinking about requisitions, paperwork, training schedules, and vacation requests. Instead, he was thinking about Fox Mulder. Or, to be more precise, he was thinking about himself and Fox Mulder. In his apartment. In bed. Doing things that normally were accomplished only in movies the Bureau typically seized from adult book stores as evidence in Justice Department pornography prosecutions. In other words, he was thinking about the prior weekend.

Had they really been sleeping together for two months? He'd opened his Day Runner a few times to look back at the date of the trip to Saint Louis, to convince himself that this had really been going on this long. It was the goddamned stupidest thing he'd ever done, to throw over a career's worth of Bureau regulations in exchange for the pleasures of Fox Mulder's body. In exchange for the private enjoyment of Fox Mulder's bizarre sense of humor. In exchange for piles of sunflower seeds left on almost every horizontal surface of his apartment except the bed. In exchange for the very definite delight of hearing Fox Mulder moaning his name when he came, and for the unfamiliar feeling of butterflies in his stomach at hearing "I love you" whispered in his ear at night from the man whose head was next to his on the pillow. A king-sized bed, two men their size, and they used so little space when sleeping together, as if not touching the other while asleep might prove fatal.

It might be the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but damn, it was worth it. He was a cautious man by nature; he'd weighed the risks, considered the drawbacks, reviewed his options. Breaking off with Mulder had been contemplated for all of half a second; that was not one of those options. Not after the devastation he'd felt in Saint Louis when Mulder had considered backing out of the relationship. Not after hearing Mulder's "I love you" that first time in his apartment. Once, the regulations had protected him from his own feelings towards the younger man. Now... now the regulations served only to frustrate him; surely they'd been intended to protect the Bureau from favoritism and exploitation, what did they have to do with love?

A buzz on the intercom from Kimberly. Agent Scully to see him. He wondered what it could be; she and Mulder usually came in a pair around the office, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Or a tall Boris and a short Natasha, Reggie Purdue had once cracked. He welcomed the interruption. If Scully had a work matter to discuss, it might help him focus. And if she saw his distraction... well, she knew, and she seemed to be all right with it. He wouldn't have to explain anything to her.

It looked like work. She came in with a file folder in her hand, looking vaguely concerned. He motioned her to one of the seats across from his desk. "Yes, Agent Scully?"

"Sir, Agent Mulder sent me a fax this afternoon. He was out on a preliminary investigation, and according to this he's requesting a 302 in order to continue with the investigation. He and I don't see this case the same way, of course, but I do think there's something here worth pursuing." She handed the folder, with several faxed sheets in it, over to Skinner.

"Would you care to brief me?"

"Certainly." She folded her hands in her lap, stared at them. "Agent Mulder received a report of an alleged psychic who has been selling some sort of spurious formulas with claims of miraculous powers. There's a concern that she may be selling drugs illegally, or, from what I see here, there may be knowing misuse of unregulated herbal remedies with toxic effects. There are some possible FDA violations if so... and also violation of federal consumer fraud laws since she's making specific representations as to their effectiveness in causing particular results."

"So what do we have here, Scully? Modern snake-oil salesmen?"

"Possibly, sir. But I'm particularly concerned not about the fraud issue, but the possibility of public harm. Agent Mulder's preliminary investigation report, which you do need to look at, clearly indicates that she's selling something hallucinogenic. If she's not violating the federal narcotics laws, sir, she's knowingly distributing extremely hazardous substances without warning as to the possible effects."

Skinner nodded and opened the folder. Baltimore Police letterhead. Hmm; that was unexpected. He put his wire-rims back on and began reading. Mulder was, as Scully had indicated, requesting authorization to investigate. He'd been given a tipoff about an alleged gypsy fortuneteller operating from a storefront in Baltimore near, from what Skinner could tell, old Memorial Stadium. That was -- what? Thirty-third street, Thirty-fourth? A lot of small businesses there, fairly eclectic.

He looked more closely. "The suspect is operating what appears to be an ordinary fortune teller's establishment offering palm reading, crystal gazing, Tarot reading, and the like from the outside. When I entered, however, it became apparent that there was an additional business being run from the location by the suspect. On the walls were advertisements for 'Mrs. Turner's Botanical Formulas', offering various sizes of different remedies at equally varied prices.

"Suspect does not appear to be a doctor, pharmacist, or registered dietician or nutritionist. However, the 'botanical formulas' also do not appear to be medically necessary, but, rather, of a psychic or 'magical' nature --psychic development, luck, money attracting, aphrodisiac, lottery winning, and the like. Legally, public claims for such formulas should be marked 'spurious' or disclaimers as to efficacy posted." Skinner nodded at the report. That much was no news; he'd done a stint once in his early days on a bust involving six phony psychics and substantial cash fraud. He knew the ropes here.

"In order to avoid attracting attention I decided to claim to be a customer, my plan being to obtain a sample of one of the formulas and submit it to Agent Scully for lab analysis. Therefore when the suspect emerged from the back of the shop I requested purchase of one of several aphrodisiac formulas."

Curse Mulder; he would, wouldn't he? Why couldn't he have decided to investigate the lottery formula, and buy a Powerball chance, or an Irish Sweepstakes ticket to test the claim? If going straight for the phony love spells was supposed to be a hint -- well it had better not be a hint, that was all. Would Mulder try dropping a hint in Skinner's ear that way? It wasn't beneath the man to do that. But -- not satisfied? That was news. If they had a problem in that department, Mulder had damn well better be willing to talk about it. There sure as hell hadn't been a problem last weekend.

"When I inquired about purchasing one of the formulas, she asked if it was for me, so I told her yes. She proceeded to make some kind of liquid formula directly in front of me, although I was unable to ascertain the exact contents as the bottles used were unlabelled. She was also working at a counter and had her back turned to me for part of this proceeding.

"I expected that said mixture would be bottled so that I could take it to Agent Scully for analysis. However, she returned to me with a styrofoam cup containing extremely strong coffee, and proceeded to pour part of the formula into the cup, demanding that I consume it on the spot. I was reluctant to do this, as not only did this coffee appear from its color and consistency to have been sitting for quite some time, but the additional contents had a distinct odor approximating paint thinner."

Paint thinner. The words conjured a smell in Skinner's mind. Then the smell triggered a memory. Of a song. Damn the man... And another memory. Of Fox Mulder, the man who'd first attempted to seduce Skinner over a fake 302 involving "The Shoemaker and the Elves" -- he wouldn't be above writing a fake report on a slow day to amuse his lover, would he? But Scully was apparently determined that there was something happening here. "You're certain about this report, Agent Scully."

"Yes, sir. Quite. I'm rather alarmed about the potential misuse of mugwort. Mulder's encountered it on a couple of cases previously; it's alleged to have occult significance. However, its chemical composition-- "

"Yes, yes, Scully..." Skinner returned to the document, groaning inwardly. He was certain that Mulder was setting him up. Scully had actually read this thing? He had the horrible idea that he knew exactly where this was going, but he didn't want to think about it.

"Agent Scully," Skinner inquired again, looking down, "You have read the contents of this report?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you seriously think I should continue to read this before I deny this request."

"Yes, sir. I've considered the contents, and I would advise you to read it all the way through. I don't know how familiar you are with mugwort, but  
I do think you should look at the last page."

"All right, Agent Scully. If you insist."

He returned to Mulder's creative writing exercise. "... so, again, not wishing to arouse suspicion, I held my breath and downed the contents as quickly as possible.

"Suspicion of hallucinogens of some sort being part of the woman's formulas are undoubtedly accurate, as I rapidly began experiencing severe visual and temporal distortions. Possibly of note to Agent Scully is that there is apparently an effect on the body's internal clock, since I found myself unable to determine exactly what time of day it was, although I had entered the storefront at approximately 10:30 am."

Skinner bit his lip. "All right, Scully, what about this alleged hallucinogenic effect Agent Mulder claims to have experienced? Do you really think this report is serious?"

Scully nodded. "Sir, his statement regarding temporal distortion and interference with circadian rhythms is highly suggestive of ergotism."

"Ergotism, Agent Scully?"

"A naturally occurring fungal hallucinogen which grows on rye crops. It's suspected to have been the source of some of the alleged sightings in the Salem witch trials. Chemically, sir, it's very closely related to LSD."

"So you're telling me that Agent Mulder was under the temporary influence of LSD?"

"That's correct, sir."

"Yet it's -- " Skinner checked his watch. "-- three o' clock. How did he recover quickly enough to fax you this report?"

"It appears to act very rapidly, sir. Please continue."

Skinner rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighed, and returned to the report. "I left the premises and returned to 34th Street, where, unfortunately, I found my car being ticketed. I regret to inform you that despite the suspicion as to contents, the formula appears to be effective as represented. Fortunately, my badge was on me and not in the car, as I am currently at the Baltimore PD main office, originally having been charged with assault on a police officer and attempted sexual assault." Skinner let out an involuntary groan. Only Mulder... shit. No, he reminded himself, this had to be another one of Mulder's jokes... but knowing his lover, it wouldn't be the least bit unexpected if it were true...

"However, I have a prior acquaintance with an Officer Munch of the Homicide unit, which has enabled me to talk my way out of the original charge of assaulting an officer. You may be aware that Officer Munch has had some experience previously with unexpected exposure to hallucinogens on my part. I am currently visiting with Officer Munch, and Munch is allowing me to fax this report to you from his office. Although the hallucinogenic effect of the formula appears to be extremely short-lived, I must inform you that the purpose for which it is being retailed appears to be considerably more long-lasting.

"If you are interested in my continuing the investigation on this portion of the matter... how's seven at your place? You might be interested in a personal demonstration of the effects. PS -- I love you. FM."

Skinner shut the file and laid it down squarely in front of him on the desk. He took off his glasses, folded them, and laid them on top of the file, fairly sure that he must be blushing -- he could feel the heat spreading over his face. If Scully, as she'd said, really had read this, then she knew Mulder had set him up to ask him out. He opened his eyes slowly -- yeah, there was the Scully smirk, all right...

Oh, well, why shouldn't she smirk? She was the one who'd sat with him on the flight back from Saint Louis, translating Mulder's behavior to him in terms of Mulder's absolute terror at the time at having realized that he was in love with Skinner. He'd never been able to feel very close to her before that, but the walls between them had started coming down when his own emotions had been exposed to her nakedly on that flight. And she undoubtedly knew about Mulder's original 302 request in Saint Louis... the one that had started this whole thing.

God help him, he really was in love with that damned idiot, wasn't he?

Finally, he folded his hands and laid them on the desk in front of the file. Scully looked as if she might be ready to beak into a sweat, despite the air conditioning. Skinner took a deep breath and a shot in the dark. "Agent Scully, exactly where is Agent Mulder at this moment?"

"Um... in the office, sir." She squirmed under Skinner's gaze.

"Not in Baltimore?" He began to smile, just at the corners of his lips. Agents feared that look, and he knew it. Lesser agents than Scully and Mulder had succumbed to it. Agent Fernandez had passed out once when he'd given it to her over a misstated fact in a report she'd submitted, he recalled.

"No." Oh, Scully was definitely nervous, and it felt good. A little revenge for this 302 was definitely deserved.

"Agent Scully, has Agent Mulder in fact been to Baltimore today?" The smile was turning feral. He could practically imagine that he felt his eyeteeth descending as fangs. They'd better not, though -- he really didn't want Mulder investigating him as an X-File. Investigating him in bed was more than sufficient. As he'd no doubt remind himself again tonight.

"Well, sir, since you ask me that, I would have to say that Agent Mulder has been out of the office today, but if you were to ask me where he was when this was faxed, I could not answer that question specifically, no, sir. Although I believe that he did in fact meet with Officer Munch."

He'd heard that type of line from Scully before. He knew damn well what she meant, every time she'd ever obfuscated with them. She was a pro at delivering Mulder coverups by now. Mulder's buddy from Baltimore must have slipped him the stationery -- there had been a meeting this morning with the Baltimore police over some kind of serial killings near the docks; the racketeering guys and the VCU were helping out on that. "I didn't think so, Agent Scully."

Skinner looked over the contents of his desktop for one moment, then found and uncapped his pen. "Please inform Agent Mulder that although this is one of the worst-written requests he has yet submitted... I *am* authorizing it." He scrawled a signature on one of the sheets, and passed the file back to Scully.

Scully accepted the file and grinned. "Yes, sir. I'll tell him. Any other message?"

Skinner thought for a moment; no, it wasn't appropriate. Not now. "No, no message. I'll tell him when I see him."

"Yes, sir. Would 'love you, too' be the exact wording I should deliver?" Completely expressionless, both voice and face -- damn, she was good.

"Yes, Agent Scully. Thank you."

 

* * *

 

Title: "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"  
Author: MJ  
Email:   
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: M/Sk  
Rating: PG-13  
Archive: Basement, CKoS (Allslash), all others please ask.  
Spoilers: huh?  
Summary: Another cheerful "Mexico" prequel. Follows "Hoochie Coochie Man." Rampant silliness possibly ahead. Something to read while JiM and I edit (interminably...) the full-length sequel to "I Still Have Plans to Go to Mexico."

* * *

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"  
A "Mexico" prequel by MJ

"To: Assistant Director Walter Skinner  
From: Special Agent Fox Mulder, Division Head, X-Files Unit  
Re: Permission to Investigate

"AD Skinner, sir:

"Although I recognize that this memorandum which I am e-mailing as an attachment is not, strictly speaking, of course, the appropriate form for a 302, I am hoping that you will consider my request to investigate an unusual phenomenon whose occurrence has just been made known to me."

Walter Skinner merely shook his head. The thought of Fox Mulder driving into a small town in the middle of nowhere and discovering an unusual phenomenon was, to put it mildly, a routine occurrence. Mulder could find an unusual phenomenon in the middle of the park on a sunny June Sunday. As, indeed, his lover had proven two months before, when they'd been walking through Rock Creek Park minding their own business.

"When I arrived at Clarksville, a small town about three-quarters of the way to my conference destination yesterday morning, I pulled in at a local convenience store to fill up my rental car and to get a cup of coffee. Upon entering the building, however, I had the chance to hear the locals engaged in a conversation about apparent events of the previous night. These events included the sighting of strange lights in the sky, unidentified aircraft, and the possible ejection from the craft and parachuting down of some unidentified person or being who was not found in the most likely landing area after due searching.

"Recognizing, naturally, the signs of a possible UFO sighting" -- oh, naturally, Skinner reminded himself, "and assuring myself through a quick check of my speed dial numbers that there was no immediately available MUFON representative to call in to investigate the matter under MUFON's strict investigation standards, I realized that I would have to conduct the investigation myself." Skinner put the faxed memorandum down on his desk. For one brief moment, he considered crying.

"I called the conference organizers and apologized for my having to miss the meeting due to an investigation, and then presented myself to the local constabulary, here consisting of one Sheriff Albert Pike and his assistant, Deputy Leo Taxil.

"I was informed that there had been a series of sightings over the past week, primarily near the fields of a local farmer, one Jonathan Yarker. Most had followed roughly the same pattern as the one about which I had heard at the convenience store. Therefore, I determined that the best procedure was to obtain necessary supplies and prepare to investigate the matter myself through a stakeout in Mr. Yarker's back 40.

"After catching a nap in my car for a couple of hours and making a reservation at the local motel for an overnight stay if necessary (the Stellar Motel, Room 8, has lousy water pressure, and I know because I wound up showering there afterwards -- the hot water isn't all that hot, either), I proceeded to Mr. Yarker's rear acreage with my telescope, binoculars, video camera, Polaroid, and other necessities available at the local Wal-Mart. The charge slips are attached for reimbursement."

Skinner flipped to the back of the document, looking at the faxed receipt slips which Kimberly had stapled to the memorandum. There they were. Power telescope. Top-of-the-line video camera -- nothing less, obviously, would be able to capture the appearance of the Mother Ship of All Mother Ships. At least Mulder hadn't purchased another cellular telephone while he was at it. The man killed cellular telephones the way a barn cat killed field mice. Now, there was what Skinner called an unexplained phenomenon.

"According to the local paper, The Plantation and Gazette, sundown was at 8:53 p.m., which accords with my own observations give or take a minute (my Omega watch isn't what it used to be since it underwent some sort of temporal distortion on one airline flight, you understand). For the next two hours or so, I observed nothing unusual, although I did discover that the range on the telescope I had procured was more than adequate to check on the Yarker household, and it's true what they say about farmers' daughters. However, several locals began to arrive in said field in order to look for the unexplained event, causing me to have to stop doing a full sighting adjustment to the scope while targeting the daughter's window. I observe that her window is, however, a popular spot for focusing long-range viewing equipment for many men in the area. 

"About forty-five minutes later, after midnight, both I and the locals observed some form of flying craft becoming visible in the night sky. In my astonishment, I failed to obtain a photographic record of the event, but you will find a description and sketch attached to this memorandum for reference." No. Skinner bit his lip, restraining himself. He was not going to look. He did not want to know. He could never be that curious in his whole life, no matter how badly his lover tried to bait him. He simply was not going to look, he was not going to look, he was...

He loosened his tie, opened a desk drawer, and shook out two aspirin. He was going to find a map, find Clarksville, and go rescue Mulder himself. If Fox Mulder thought he'd sighted an honest-to-God UFO for himself, nothing in heaven or earth was going to make him leave that spot without intervention.

Where had he read that married men lived longer than single men? He presumed that being in any kind of relationship counted for that study. No one had asked him what living with Fox Mulder did to your life expectancy. If he'd had hair left when they'd begun their relationship, he'd be completely gray now; he was sure of it. One Fox Mulder adventure probably took a year and a half off of his life, no doubt about it. And Mulder had only two kinds of adventures: exhilarating or exasperating. Weekends and vacations tended to fall in the first category. But work-related, or allegedly work-related, Fox Mulder wild goose chases were decidedly in the latter.

Oh, God, there was still more memorandum to this memorandum. Faxed in off of the laptop, no doubt, it as usual failed to conform to anything even vaguely resembling a 302. How an Oxford graduate could fail at something as simple as filling out a standard 302... Skinner tried imagining his lover's elementary school report cards. "Works and plays well with invisible others. Insists that visible others are alien hybrids." "Marches to the beat of a different drum. We use a snare for marching play, he insists on Caribbean voodoo." "Runs with scissors. Drops scissors." "Eats paste. Feeds it to others." "Attacks smokers." "Fox shows great imagination. Usually when asked to account for his behavior."

"Apparently, the craft was flying low enough for it to be exited safely by its occupants because, whether through an ejection mechanism or other means, one occupant departed the craft heading at a trajectory which meant that it would reach Earth somewhere in the vicinity of Mr. Yarker's field. Although I was not able, as noted, to obtain photographs of said being, I can attest that it was in form decidedly non-human. As it fell through the atmosphere, I observed that it was somewhat unicorn-like in that its head was surmounted by a horn of some sort which was fairly straight, perhaps a meter in length, and not shaped like a rhinoceros horn which has some degree of curvature as I recall. Also, it was Cyclopean - I think that's the term Scully would use, having as it did only one large eye centered somewhat below the horn and above the nasal (?) region of the face."

Skinner hit the reply button on his mail.

"To: Special Agent Fox Mulder  
From: AD Walter Skinner  
Re: Re: Permission to Investigate

"You insufferable idiot, I haven't even read all the way through that infernal e-mail of yours. As far as I've gotten, you saw a thing coming out of the sky. It had one long horn and one big eye. Was it also purple and with a desperate yen to play sax with the Dave Clark Five?"

He clicked on "send" with an air of general relief.

Ten minutes later, his incoming mail sound went off. Praying that it was a message from Kersh, Cassidy, Alex Krycek, or even his ex -mother-in-law, Skinner opened his inbox.

"To: AD Walter Skinner  
From: Special Agent Fox Mulder  
Re: Re: Re: Permission to Investigate

"Damn, busted. I guess I can't ask you to take the last train to Clarksville? I'll meet you at the station..."

No, he could not. Skinner gritted his teeth and prayed for strength.

"To: Fox Mulder  
From: Walter Skinner  
Re: Impending doom (yours)

"You wasted the travel for the conference on this? Death isn't good enough. I haven't decided what I'm doing, but I'm doing it. Are we clear on this?" He hit "send" and scrounged his memory for another prayer to get him through the rest of the day.

The incoming mail chime rang promptly. He had no illusion that it was anything other than a response from his criminally insane lover.

"To: Walter Skinner  
From: Who else  
Re: Impending doom (mine)

"Spank me? Pretty please? <g>"

Hair. Walter Skinner prayed for hair. He had nothing to rip from his head otherwise. He'd been right before - death simply wasn't good enough. Spanking was way too good - hell, Mulder would enjoy that. Maybe that was it; maybe Mulder was deliberately trying to provoke him into a scene by having gone gallivanting off and driving him crazy. Mulder had obviously concluded that running off from the conference and staging a fake alien sighting would push him over the edge, would drive him into throwing Mulder down on the bed, ripping off Mulder's expensively tailored wool serge trousers, and flagellating those two gorgeous globes of swimmer's ass into submission with his belt... no, come to think of it, Skinner decided, the problem wasn't that Mulder would enjoy that too much, it was that he'd enjoy it too much himself. He steadied his palms against the edge of his desk, willing down the erection that had accompanied the thought.

Blessedly, the intercom beeped. "Yes, Kim?" Thank God, he could focus on business for a minute.

"Assistant Director Levinson calling for you from Richmond, sir."

Richmond. The conference. Oh, no, this wasn't about Mulder's not being there, was it? The slight remaining hardness inside his trousers wilted instantly. At the rate things were going, it might never return. He picked up the receiver and groaned. "Yeah, Fred?"

"Things are going great down here, Walt. Your boy Mulder's the hit of this damn thing. With that rep he'd gotten from the UFO's and that suspension and shit, a couple of our organizers were a little doubtful, you gotta understand, but let me tell you, you put that guy behind a podium with a set of slides and he's got the room eating out of his hand. We had to schedule a second session on profiles of child murderers; we couldn't get everyone into the room the first time. And his session on interrogation techniques really went over big. Dawes wants to know if he can do a training workshop in Seattle next month."

Mulder was there? Mulder was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do? What the -- ? Skinner took a deep breath. "That's great, Fred. I'm glad to hear it. I'll call Allen when the conference is over and see what we can work out."

He hung up the receiver slowly. After all that bullshit, Mulder was doing his work all along? How many years had Mulder knocked off of Skinner's life this morning? 

So Mulder wanted to get spanked, huh?

Oh, was Fox Mulder gonna get spanked.

And Walter Skinner was going to enjoy every second of it. 


End file.
